


If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now

by aparticularbandit



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, I hope, Maybe - Freeform, Mental Hospital AU, Other, SO, also this might take a while to get to warm fuzzies, and added a new one, and at least one good therapist, and i needed more mental patients than just luisa and rose, and there's a lot of not warm fuzzies, brought in characters from other fandoms that i've written before, but eventually there should be SOME warm fuzzies, but they're not the focus, just don't judge me for the random characters i needed more people, really it's more of a girl interrupted au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2019-08-04 01:33:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 61,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16337189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aparticularbandit/pseuds/aparticularbandit
Summary: "In the parallel universe the laws of physics are suspended.  What goes up does not necessarily come down; a body at rest does not tend to stay at rest; and not every action can be counted on to provoke an equal and opposite reaction.  Time, too, is different.  It may run in circles; flow backwards, skip about from now to then.  The very arrangement of molecules is fluid: Tables can be clocks; faces, flowers."These are facts you find out later, though."Another odd feature of the parallel universe is that although it is invisible from this side, once you are in it you can easily see the world you came from.  Sometimes the world you came from looks huge and menacing, quivering like a vast pile of jelly; at other times it is miniaturized and alluring, a-spin and shining in its orbit.  Either way, it can't be discounted."Every window on Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco."-Susanna Kaysen; Girl, Interrupted





	1. Chapter 1

She hadn’t expected the drive to feel so short.  In movies, they always made it seem much longer, giving the protagonist – the _heroine_ – enough time to think and make final requests or apologize, something that made her family realize _hey!  she’s not really insane after all!_   and turn the car around.  The only ones who actually made it to the hospital were villains.  _Unless_ it’s a telenovela.  Then, after an episode or two where the heroine romanced _at least one_ of the other women locked away and realized that _none_ of them were insane but had all been sent there by the _actually_ insane villain’s dastardly schemes, they broke free, escaping into whatever drama (and new love interests) were soon to follow.

For all her hallucinations ( **one** , a red-headed, freckled woman with bright blue eyes by the name of Carla, who was not, no matter how much she imagined it, sitting on the seat next to her, holding one of her hands in both of hers, eyes wide with concern), Luisa wasn’t delusional.  She held no illusions of grandeur; she didn’t imagine she’d fall in love or plot an escape during her stay at Belle Reve, and she _certainly_ didn’t believe some dastardly, cartoonish, one-dimensional villainess had sent her here.  She’d known Carla since she was six years old.  Worse, she knew her own mother and the hallucinations that talked her into jumping off the bridge (or maybe she’d jumped off to escape them.  She knew how _that_ felt).  The only villain in this story was herself, her body, her _genetics_.  Her brief foray into psychology told her that medicine and therapy would help.  So, she was here.

Okay, so maybe the drive was longer than she thought.  Long enough to resign herself, yet again, to being locked away in a mental hospital, short enough that her heart froze in her chest when they arrived.

_They_ being Luisa and her family (but _not_ Carla).

_Her family_ being her younger brother, Rafael, who sat in the front seat with his chin resting on the back of his fingers, staring out the window as trees zoomed by, and her father, Emilio, who sat on the seat next to her, hands clasped between his legs, leaning back against the plush leather seat as though afraid to even look at her, still dressed in a suit because even today, without his newest wife by his side and without any important meetings to attend, he couldn’t bear to dress down.  At least he hadn’t brought Sheila with him, the blonde fluffy – _ugh_ , Luisa didn’t even know how to _describe_ the woman.  Being around Sheila felt like overdosing on cotton candy while walking through a cloud: all body and no substance.  Where did he even _find_ these women?  They felt more like car models than wives, a new upgrade every two or three years, _if_ they lasted _that_ long.  Rafael’s mother had been the longest.  Five years.  Well, more like four and a half, but she’ll round up.

The black sedan slowed to a halt in front of the hospital, and Luisa’s breath did the same.  Well, not entirely.  There’s a certain level of _fainting_ that came with the whole _not breathing_ thing, but for a moment, it _felt_ like she did.  Like the entire world stopped.  It was then that Carla the non-existent squeezed her hand in both of hers and Luisa _gasped_ and the world started again.

“Darling, are you getting out?” her father asked from his place outside the car, the world having moved on without her while she’d believed it frozen.  His glance narrowed as he scanned the empty seat next to her.

“You really don’t see her?”

“Lu, there’s _no one there_.”  Rafael was more exasperated with her than their father was.  He was taking it hard and maybe a little bit personally, where their dad had at least _seen_ this sort of thing before and knew better than to push her.  When he turned to face her, the exasperation faded, and he repeated, “There’s no one there.”

“Daddy?”

Her voice sounded small and pitiful, even to her, and as she glanced to her father, she could see the big bear of a man tense.  It wasn’t in the tightening of his jaw or the clench of his hands but in the square of his shoulders, the shuddering exhale of a deeply held breath.  He didn’t have to say anything for her to know that he, too, couldn’t see the woman sitting on the other side of her, and even though they both knew she wasn’t real, Emilio bent down and held out his hand so that she didn’t feel as though she were pushing through whatever it was she saw next to her.

Luisa took his hand, sliding hers out of Carla’s grip, and didn’t look back as the freckled woman reached out her hands toward her.

* * *

 

“You’ll be rooming with Betty,” Nurse Brooks said as they stopped next to what would be Luisa’s room and knocked loudly on the door before opening it.  “Hi, Betty!”  She smiled warmly at the open-mouthed brunette sitting cross-legged on the right of two twin beds, and the woman Luisa assumed _must_ be Betty turned to face them.  “This is your new roommate, _Luisa,_ ” Nurse Brooks said her name with an additional weight before she turned back to Luisa with a sigh and whispered, “She hasn’t spoken in the past twelve years, so I wouldn’t expect any change while you’re here.”

Luisa nodded once, slowly, and then gave Betty her infamously perplexed grin and a small little wave.  Rafael had refused to come inside, and her father left once she’d been officially signed in.  They’d given him the option, but he said it would be better for Luisa to get her bearings of the place before he came to visit.  Luisa knew better.  Mental hospitals reminded him of her mother the same way they reminded _her_ of her mother.  He didn’t want to be here anymore than she did; given the option to leave, she would do the same.

“The daily schedule is here,” Nurse Brooks gestured to a piece of paper covered in plastic and screwed into the wall, “and a map with emergency exits is here,” another gesture, another piece of paper, more plastic and screws.  “It’s free time right now, so some of the other residents are in the tv room.  If you’d like, I can take you to meet them, or you can stay here and get settled.  Get to know your roommate.”

Luisa’s eyes glanced from Betty to Nurse Brooks and back again.  If she was completely honest with herself, a part of this felt like an extended summer camp with a much better room and air conditioner situation, except with a roommate who didn’t seem to understand that she _could_ close her mouth and other nurses going through her suitcase to make sure there was nothing hidden inside that she wasn’t allowed to have.  “I think I’ll stay in here for now.  Talk to Betty.  You know, girl gossip.”  Twelve years of it.  “Do you know when I’ll get my clothes back?”

“Can’t say for certain.  Sometimes the interns are a lot faster than others, but you know how it is.”  Brooks gave a sigh, and that was when Luisa knew that even if the nurse hadn’t read her file, she’d skimmed enough of it to know that she’d been in medical school.  Not enough to know that she’d been almost halfway through her residency before being sent here.  But the woman offered a conciliatory nod before leaving the room.  “I’ll make sure you have something before tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.  Luisa already knew it’d be full of more introductions, not just to the other inpatients, but to the staff, to the schedule, to her new doctor (a woman by the name of _Alana Bloom_ , who had come highly recommended and was, in fact, the reason she’d chosen _this_ program out of the outstandingly _several_ others nearby.  To be quite honest, Luisa’d been surprised they’d given her a choice, but apparently that was an option she gained when she decided to go willingly), and even just thinking about all of it made her _exhausted_.  She gave Betty another little wave.  “Look, Betty, I know I said something about gossip and girl talk, but I think I’m just gonna,” she gestured to the bed, “test this thing out, give it a little experimental nap—“

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“ _Shit._ ”  Luisa _jumped_ at the voice and turned to the redheaded woman leaning up against one of the walls.  “Carla, you’re not real.  Just,” and here she made shooing motions with her hands, “go away.  Leave me alone.  Let me have a _life_ because I’d _love_ to have one of those again.”

“Luisa, you don’t know what Betty’s last roommate was like!  I’m looking out for you here!”  Carla looked over the bed and shuddered.  “What if her last roommate was addicted to ex lax?  What if they spent half of their time shitting in the bed?  What if—“

“Carla, _stop_.  Please?  Can’t you see that I’m having a bad enough time here without you making it _worse_?”  And here, finally, Luisa turned back to Betty, who sat watching with her mouth wide open.  “Yes, I know, she’s not here, I’m seeing someone, and not even the _good_ kind of seeing someone, the kind of seeing someone that gets you locked in a mental hospital and does _not_ get you laid, which, really, is the worst kind of seeing someone if you think about it.”  Luisa plopped down on the bed, much to Carla’s startled gasp of dismay, head flopping on what actually was not the _worst_ pillow she’d ever used.  She’d been to a lot of hotels.  A lot of them had flat, _horrible_ pillows.  (Her father made a point of making sure his customers had better pillows, and it showed.  She’d read about it a lot on those little cards some of the guests filled out, back when he’d had her _working_ in the hotels during high school.  Glowing compliments.  _Ugh._ )

“Betty?  Can I tell you a secret?”  Luisa stared at the ceiling for a moment, ignoring Carla’s comment that she could tell _her_ a secret, and waited for her roommate to respond, already beginning to count the cracks in the tile before remembering the whole _hasn’t spoken in twelve years_ thing.  She turned on one side, wrapping her hands under her pillow, and stared at the woman still sitting cross-legged on the other bed.  Other than moving to face her, Luisa wasn’t sure Betty had even _moved_.  “Ok, we have to make some sort of signal, blink once for yes, blink twice for no sort of thing.  That work for you?”

Betty blinked once.

“Ok, good, good, now that that’s _that_ , can I tell you a secret?”

Betty didn’t blink this time, which was a failure of the system because _not blinking_ didn’t mean anything, but in this case, Luisa was _certain_ it was just Betty’s sense of humor, like _duh, of course you can tell me a secret, I don’t speak, who am I gonna tell?_ and she let out her own sigh, face contorting into a pout.

“I think I’m going to _hate it_ here.”

* * *

 

The knock on her door came too soon for comfort.  Luisa glanced up at the high school style clock hanging on the cement block wall (they’d painted it one of those off-white eggshell colors, as if that could hide what they all knew it was, which it couldn’t but at least it made the room feel more welcoming than cement block grey would have).  Thirty minutes.  Probably not enough for them to finish with her suitcase full of clothes, and definitely not enough for them to move from _free time_ into whatever the next thing on the schedule was (Luisa _thought_ it was dinner, although she couldn’t quite be sure).  Her eyes wandered to the little rectangular window in the door and saw an unfamiliar face there.

One of the nurses.  It _had_ to be one of the nurses.  No one that attractive would be an inpatient at a hospital like this.

Now, Luisa didn’t want to talk with another one of the nurses.  Really, she didn’t.  But there was a certain amount of curiosity that came with seeing someone like _that_ , so she turned to Betty and mouthed, _Who is that?_ before realizing, yet again, that their blinking communication system didn’t really work with that sort of question.  With absolutely no help from her roommate, Luisa pushed herself off of her bed, straightened her not entirely modest dress, and padded over on bare feet to answer the door.

“Can I help you?”

“You’re Betty’s new roommate?”  The long-legged redhead (sometimes Luisa believed she was cursed to be surrounded with redheads.  Not all of them gorgeous.  She would think that if she was hallucinating Carla she would have made her significantly more attractive, but no.  Carla was very homey.  Slightly overweight.  _Covered_ in freckles to the point that sometimes Luisa had jokingly asked if she _was_ a freckle, which had always made Carla scowl, which in turn made Luisa laugh) passed Luisa as she entered the room, and she sat down on the edge of Betty’s bed, curling her legs up beneath her.

“Yes, um, I’m Luisa.  Didn’t they tell you that?” she asked as she moved to sit down on her own bed, facing the new stranger.

The woman’s face turned from Betty to stare at Luisa.  “Why would they tell me that?”

“They don’t tell the nurses the new—“

“I’m not a nurse.”  The woman heaved a sigh, ample bosom lifting as she did so, and Luisa couldn’t help but be distracted.  “I’m Jessica Irving.  I live next door.”  Jessica didn’t offer a hand for Luisa to shake, instead turning back to Betty and taking one of her hands in both of hers, rubbing them together gently.

Luisa watched for a moment, mostly taking in Jessica and her _curves_ , before gathering the curiosity-inspired strength to ask, “What are you doing?”

“I’ve known Betty for years.  No one comes to visit her.  Most of the other inpatients pretend she doesn’t exist just because she can’t speak, and she’s had a string of roommates who do the same.”  Jessica didn’t turn to Luisa as she spoke, making her point.  “She likes when I do this.”

“How do you know?”

“I asked her once.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing.”  Jessica’s lips curved into a half-grin, and she finally turned to face Luisa.  “It’s a joke.  You can laugh.”

Luisa wrapped her arms around her chest, one leg crossing over the other, showing off her own legs.  “It wasn’t that good of a joke.”

“I know,” Jessica said with a sigh.  “My husband is better at that sort of thing.”

_Your husband?_   Luisa didn’t ask, but her eyes narrowed in confusion.  If she’d known Betty for _years_ , then she must have been _here_ for years, right?  How could she have a husband and be _here_?  How did that even work?  Did they give inpatients rooms for sex or something?  Or were they one of _those_ couples?  (Oh, how she _hoped_ they were one of _those_ couples, because then she could--  No, Luisa, _you’re_ in a mental hospital.  Do you really think they’d let you bang one of the other inpatients?  That is _not_ what you are here for.  Quit thinking it.)

Jessica stood after another moment, brushed a hand down her white dress, and offered Luisa a hand.  “C’mon.”

“Come again?”

Jessica tilted her head to one side, red hair cascading down one shoulder.  “You’re new.  You might as well come outside and meet everyone.  It’s sweet of you to sit in here with Betty, but she won’t mind.  Will you, Betty?”

Luisa watched Betty’s eyes, and when she blinked _twice_ , she took Jessica’s hand and stood back up.  She didn’t particularly _want_ to meet anyone today.  If anything, she would far prefer to stay in bed and not move at all at least until whatever fresh hell tomorrow brought, and while this might be one of the few places that would actually understand and accept that, she also realized that was maybe not the _best_ way to try and get _better_.  Especially not with Carla still leaning against the wall, arms crossed, watching and trying to get Luisa to pay attention to her (which Luisa was mostly succeeding at not doing.  Mostly).

“Fine.  Show me the people I _have_ to know and, uh, can we avoid the ones who I maybe shouldn’t?  I’ve got enough problems with unwanted people without having to deal with _real ones_ , too.”

“Of course.”  With a small goodbye wave to Betty, Jessica led Luisa out of her room and down to the first open area.  “This,” she said, “is the common area, which I’m sure Brooks already told you.  The cool people – and the insufferable ones – tend to hang out here.  Me, for instance.”  She gave an encouraging smile that quickly turned to a frown as her eyes focused on one of the other inpatients.

Luisa followed her stare to a head draped back over the couch, ragged curls splayed over the edge, eyes shut tight.  Her face seemed to be sculpted from marble, and it was then that Luisa wandered if her mind had finally kicked it into overdrive and decided that if she was going to be in a mental institute it might as well populate it with ridiculously gorgeous women to get her through the experience.  A hand lifted, motioning through the air as though conducting the common area, pointing at the tv room just in time for one of the residents to give a stifled moan (or it might have been an attempted shout, she couldn’t tell).  If she craned her ears, Luisa could almost hear her… _whistling_?

“Who is that?”

“That’s—“

“Clara?”  Nurse Brooks backed out of one of the doorways, clipboard covered with papers in one hand.  “Clara Ruvelle?”  Her dark eyes focused on the woman still splayed, unchanged, on the couch.  “Clara, for fuck’s sake, if you don’t _answer_ me—“

“That’s not. my name.”

Other than the disappearance of the potentially imagined whistling, the woman on the couch still hadn’t moved.  Actually, more absurdly, she’d started conducting the nurse’s actions, her mannerisms, her speech.  She pointed her hand at her just as she opened her mouth again.

“And what name have you decided to call yourself this week?”

“Didn’t I tell you?”  The woman’s hand dropped to the sofa with a plop, and she took a deep breath, eyes finally opening.  She tilted her head a little further back so that her eyes just met Luisa’s, and even from that distance, even upside down, Luisa felt like she was falling into some immense stretch of the clearest, cloudless sky she had ever seen.

No, not falling.

_Flying._

“I’m Rose.”

If this _were_ a telenovela, and, unfortunately for Luisa, it wasn’t, there would be some sort of _pause_ , some sort of weighted empty moment with music or lightning or fireworks.  But it wasn’t, and all that happened was Brooks rolling her eyes and tapping once, loudly, on the back of her clipboard.  “Well, Ms. _Rose_ , if you’d like your bath, you’re going to have to come with me or wait for another—“

“I’m coming.”

Luisa wasn’t sure if the barest hint of a smirk she saw on Rose’s lips was real or not or if it was even directed at her because it disappeared in a heartbeat of a second, Rose sitting up promptly, one arm stretched across the back of the sofa to hoist herself up, still resting there as she stood up, as if she needed the support to appear as weightless as she did.  As she left, Rose didn’t even seem to acknowledge her existence past that, so Luisa was certain she was just imagining things.  Of course she was.  That’s why she was _here_ , wasn’t it?

She shook her head once, lips tugged between her teeth, and turned back to Jessica with an attempt at a grin.  “Who else did you want me to meet?”

* * *

“I get a razor, don’t I?”

Rose lazed in the claw-footed bathtub in the middle of the room designated for bath time.  The faucets didn’t quite work; all of the water was _freezing_ cold; and the bubbles, although nice, didn’t last long.  If she cared, she might feel sorry for the nurses who had to watch them, to make sure they didn’t harm themselves, but she didn’t, which made bath time more _fun_ for her, ignoring the bubbles slowly disappearing around her own naked form.

Brooks pulled a dollar cheap plastic pink shaving razor out of the pocket of her nurse’s shirt and held it just out of reach.  Rose didn’t have to look to know that was her response, and she continued to lay against the back of the tub, arms stretched out on either side, head tilted back and eyes closed, one leg slowly moving up the other.

“You know that doesn’t bother me.”

“Then why are you bringing it up?”

Rose opened her eyes, not even deigning to give Brooks so much as a grin, but if she was willing to play along with her today, then she would join her.  She sat up just as slowly as she’d drawn her legs together and reached out for the razor, only for Brooks, as expected, to move it away from her.

“You won’t remove one of the razors this time?”

“No.”

“You won’t break the plastic to make a jagged edge?”

“No.”

“You won’t take one of the blades and stab me in the neck like you did Nurse Jenni?”

“Of course not, Brooks, I _like_ you.  We have **fun**.”

Brooks handed the razor over, and Rose twirled it through her fingers before leaning back into the tub.  “How _is_ Nurse Jenni, anyway?”

“Has a nasty scar.  Absolutely refuses to come work for us again.  Says she likes the compensation.”

“She’s a new mother.”  Rose extended one leg over the edge of the tub.  “She should stay home with her kid.”

“And what is she going to tell the kid when they ask about that scar on her neck?”

“They won’t ask.”  This razor wasn’t as smooth as the last one.  She could feel the blades close cut along her skin, knew that if she pressed just hard enough, she would nick her skin.  But one drop of blood, and they’d take the razor and she wouldn’t be allowed to use another one for over a month.  It ruined her fun.  “You didn’t tell me we were getting a new girl.”

“Didn’t know until she arrived.”

“I find that hard to believe.  She looks like one of Dr. Bloom’s patients, and we both know those appointments take months to set up.”  A pause, then, “Or was it that sudden opening when Marissa—“

Brooks didn’t say anything.

“Well, good for her.”

Rose ran a hand along her leg.  Not as smooth as she wanted, but as smooth as she was going to get with this razor unless she wanted to go over her work again.  She might.  She hadn’t quite decided yet.

It was as she neared the curves of her knee that Brooks spoke again, words that she had also expected.

“You leave the new girl alone.”

“I don’t even know her _name_ , Brooks.  What makes you think I want to play with her?”

“You want to play with everyone, Clara.”

“Rose.”

“ _Clara._ ”

Brooks’s voice was stern enough that if they were in a room with better acoustics, it might have echoed.  But for a bathroom, the sound in this room was shit.  Nothing reverberated.  The louder in tone she got, the more the room sucked her voice away from her.  It was better to speak normally or, most fun of all, _quietly_ , so soft that the nurses had to lean down to hear what she was saying.  They’d stopped doing that after Jenni, told her to speak up or not at all.  She liked their fear.

“And if I don’t?”

“I’ll make sure you’re in isolation for a month.”

Rose’s eyes widened just the barest bit, but she didn’t stop focusing on what remained of her leg.  It was an empty threat.  There’d been studies on the effects of solitary confinement on prisoners.  Some people called it _torture_.  To do that to a mentally unstable person?  In a mental institute?  Three days at most, then they _had_ to come back out.  Maybe a week, if Brooks pushed it.

But the worst of this was what Brooks should know by now – telling her _not_ to do something was an almost surefire way of getting her to do it.  Isolation was more like a wager, a question of whether or not she would get caught.  She didn’t need to tell Brooks that.  No, she was sure this had less to do with the girl and more to do with an opportunity to get rid of her for a while.  Maybe to get Jenni back.  Not that she believed it would work.  Jenni had been weak.  Her refusal to come back was just more proof of that.

Rose ran her hands down her newly finished leg.  Better.  Still not what she wanted, but close enough for now.

She stretched her arms back with a slight moan, listening to her spine pop, then lazed back in the tub, twiddling the razor between her fingers.

“I’ll see what I can do.”


	2. Chapter 2

Breakfast was early.  Too early, in Luisa’s opinion, for a day that, given her brief scan of the daily schedule, evidently consisted of primarily _free time_ broken only by eating, taking medication, and visits with one of their (far too many) therapists.  It looked like there was time scheduled to meet with the residential therapists (medical students in their residencies who she _suspected_ were in control of their medication, given what she’d heard from some of her co-workers during her own residency), the house therapist (probably a licensed psychiatrist, although she didn’t know what she was for.  emergencies, maybe, or to lead the group therapy sessions), and her _personal_ therapist (this, she suspected, was when she would meet with Dr. Bloom).  But there were asterisks on the schedule that indicated that not all of these meetings took place every day – group therapy did, and meeting with the residential therapist did, but the others were _as determined by personal schedule_.

And all of that started with breakfast.

If Luisa was honest with herself, 7:45am wasn’t really _that_ early.  But she’d had trouble sleeping – a combination of the new bed (not that it was uncomfortable, it wasn’t, surprisingly enough) and the anxiety bubbling in her gut over being in a mental institution (which, honestly, was the last place she wanted to be.  no.  dead, maybe, was the last place she wanted to be.  or one of those _really_ long lines at the rides at Disney World when she didn’t have a fast pass.  those were _horrible_ ) – and a part of her wanted to skip the meal entirely.  She wasn’t _hungry_ ; she was _tired_.

Then came the knock at her door, and she knew that, no, they weren’t going to let her skip breakfast.

Luisa stifled the groan in the back of her throat, eyes shut tight, one arm thrown over them to try and block the sunlight creeping in through her window.  The knock came again, more insistent this time, and she threw her sheets off, forced herself out of bed, and made her way to the door to open it.

Ok, not a nurse, and definitely _not_ who she was expecting.

“Breakfast, Betty.”  Jessica entered the room, and Betty tilted her head back, eyes wide as she tried to meet Jessica’s, mouth still wide open.

 _Lockjaw?_ Luisa thought, briefly, then, _No.  She has to close it sometime, otherwise she’d be unfit to eat and be strung up on ivs._   That _alone_ was incentive to go to breakfast, just to see how her roommate managed to eat.  She still felt groggy as she returned to her bed and sat down cross-legged on top of it, brushing her fingers through her tangled hair.  _It’s too early._   She yawned with a mouth far wider than Betty’s, rubbing her eyes with the back of one hand, then gave Jessica a once-over and groaned.

Jessica looked like sleep had no effect on her hair ( _how?_ ), as if it had been drawn into place and inked in.  Either that or she’d woken up early enough to brush out every last tangle and snare.  She even looked like she was wearing make-up, which seemed unlikely (or _hard_ ) given that the smaller tools were likely taken out of fear that she might misuse them in a bad mental moment ( _worse_ mental moment – they were already living in a constant bad moment.  that’s why they were here, wasn’t it?).

In stark contrast, Luisa wasn’t even properly dressed, still in the rosy pink booty shorts and overlarge burgundy t-shirt (so long its edge hung past the tight little shorts) that she’d stolen out of Raf’s room on a trip home from college.  His last high school slogan was blazed on the front in bright white over a shadowed emboss of their mascot, the jackalope.  It’d been a while since he graduated and moved on to other things (their father pushing him into business school so that _one of them_ could learn to take over the hotel business, and while Luisa’s made it through college in a buzzed or drunken haze, Raf seemed to be using his looks and his rage), but the shirt still made her feel comfortable.  It reminded her of better, _saner_ days.

“How do you still look like that?  Do you not sleep?”

“Rarely,” Jessica replied, voice smooth as could be.  “My _pets_ are most active while the rest of you sleep.”  She brushed a hand through Betty’s thick, dark curls, pushed them behind one ear, then leaned back, propping one hand on her hip with an encouraging smile.  “Much better.”

“They let you,” and her Luisa yawned again, covering her mouth with the back of one hand, “have pets?”

“It was part of my agreement when I chose to stay here.  They acquiesced, just so long as I continued to call them _pets_.”

Luisa’s brow furrowed.  “What _else_ would you call them?”

Betty blinked twice.

Wait.  That wasn’t even a yes or no question.  C’mon, Betty, that’s confusing!

“My husband and his whore companion.”

“I _heard_ that!” came from outside the door.  “You _aren’t_ supposed to call them that.”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Brooks.”

Nurse Brooks knocked once on the door, a sound that was more a knuckle rap than a loud knock, then opened it and poked her head around the door.  “You’re getting Betty today, Jessica?”

“I always do.”

Brooks turned her head to face Luisa, who was too tired to feel a flush of embarrassment for her tangled hair or puffy, sleepy face.  “You coming, Luisa, or do I have to drag you kicking and screaming?”  Her tone sounded like she was joking, but something told her that if she didn’t comply, the joke would quickly turn sour.

Luisa nodded once and slipped out of her bed, bare feet landing on the cold tile.  “Is there coffee?”

At college, particularly during her residency, Luisa’d needed to wake up much earlier than this, and at the time, she’d been able to do it easily enough.  But she’d woken in the mornings entangled in the body of a woman who she’d recently learned didn’t actually exist and only needed to stumble to the kitchen to begin her daily drip of caffeine.  Here, she hadn’t yet had the one and had been actively avoiding the other.  (Right now, Carla was nowhere to be seen, and that was a small blessing in itself.)

Brooks nodded, and for a moment, Luisa’s face brightened.  This changed with the nurse’s words, however.

“You’re stuck on decaf until we know the caffeine won’t have an adverse effect on your meds.”

And her face immediately fell.  “This is hell.”

Luisa followed Jessica and Betty outside of her room, face contorted in disappointment.  She could already feel the headache starting in the base of her skull.  It’d be louder by the time she hit one of her therapy sessions.  Maybe she could get them to give her some aspirin.  Or ibuprofen.  Something _small_.  She doubted she could get away with anything larger.

As they walked to the cafeteria, Jessica touched her elbow, gentle.  “You haven’t been to maximum security yet.  That’s far worse.”

“That’s insanity,” Luisa retorted, immediate, because if there were layers, at least she wasn’t _that_ bad.  “ **This** ,” she repeated, “is hell.”

* * *

 

Luisa stayed close to Jessica and Betty as they moved through the food line.  Her thought from the day before stuck with her – this still felt like summer camp but with better air conditioning and, well, now with no coffee.  She took a cup at the end of the line anyway and doctored it with her customary sugar and creamer addition (and then a little more sugar, making it extra sweet, because if she couldn’t have caffeine, at least she could try for a sugar rush.  there wasn’t enough sugar in her coffee for that, but she gave herself credit for trying).  Then her eyes scanned the cafeteria for somewhere to sit.

This part felt more like high school: with their constant shifting from one hotel to the other, they didn’t last long at school, sometimes moving in the middle of the year to another part of the country (or the world, although her father was better about doing that in-between American school years).  Raf had used this to perfect charming cute girls; Luisa had seen him in action on Christmas break during med. school, and even though she’d been _mostly_ drunk, the image stuck with her.  He’d gotten all of the _suave_ in the family; Luisa was not near that subtle.  She’d been much more likely to find a group of misfits and stick with them.  (Given, most of them didn’t like her bright and bubble personality, but they introduced her to some of the more calming drugs and decided they liked her better when she was stoned or drunk.  Then she started hanging out with them because they knew how to get good liquor.  Then they started hanging out with _her_ because she’d learned how to pick the locks on her father’s liquor cabinet.  It was a slippery slope.)

The problem with being in a mental hospital was that they were _all_ misfits and none of them knew how to get alcohol.  Except the nurses.  And Luisa knew better than to think they would share.

But!  She _did_ see a couple of loners scattered among the pairs and groups of people eating, and while common sense told her she could probably sit with Jessica and Betty and be just fine _and_ that if even other inmates in a mental institution weren’t sitting with someone _that should be a good indication that she maybe shouldn’t sit with them_ , Luisa wasn’t huge on common sense.  Besides, if she was going to make a mistake, better make it on her first full day when she had plenty of time to recover from it than wait and make a mistake when it would cost her more.

So she plopped her tray down across from the woman she’d seen on the couch the day before, who had the biggest girth of empty seats by far, as though the others’ avoidance of her had more to do with her personally than it did with anything she might do.  Luisa paused with her tray on the table and waited for some sort of acknowledgement.  When the other woman didn’t look up, she pulled her chair out and sat down carefully across from her.

_I hope she’s not one of those people who throws chairs when they’re angry._

“Sorry if I’m intruding on your personal space.  I’m new.  And you’d think that the huge empty seats would convince me to sit somewhere else, but to me, open seats are _welcome signs_ that say, look, make a new friend, and I know in a place like this that’s probably a bad idea, but you’re _totally_ fine if I sit across from you, right?”  A pause.  “You’d tell me if you weren’t.”  Another pause.  “Okay, maybe you wouldn’t, maybe you’re one of those mutes like my roommate except I _know_ I heard you speak yesterday.  I heard you.  So you’re not a mute, you’re just not talking to me, which is fine, I mean, I’m probably interfering on your very personal food eating time and you’re—“  Her eyes lit on the woman’s long fingers as they slowly spread raspberry jam across her toast.  She blinked once.  “You’re not using utensils?”

The woman didn’t say anything, just blinked twice, very intentionally, and Luisa wondered if _everyone_ came up with the same _blink once for yes, blink twice for no_ system she’d made with Betty, if that was just some universal form of communication that every non-speaking person used by rout, even if it hadn’t been laid down.  “Is that an obsessive-compulsive thing?  Are you afraid of plastic?”  No, couldn’t be, the trays were plastic, the chairs were plastic, there was _so much_ plastic it would be hard for someone with a fear of plastic to live in here.  “Are you scared of plastic _utensils_?”  A pause.  “Scared of… _utensils_?”  Her lips pressed together and she looked at her own plastic utensils, the fork for the eggs, the spoon for her oatmeal (covered extensively with enough sugar and cinnamon to make a normal person sick), the knife for her jam.  “Am I bothering you with mine?  Do I need to sit somewhere else?  Is my—“

Then the woman held up one jam-stained finger and Luisa stopped, eyes flicking to the finger then back to her.  Yesterday, from farther away, she’d thought the woman to be carved from marble, and up close, that thought hadn’t changed.  But as opposed to Jessica, who seemed sketched and unreal, _she_ seemed human.  Maybe it was the crinkles in her hair and how a few strands seemed perfectly out of place, or the stain of the jam on her lips like lipstick, or the bright blue of her eyes as she glanced up and how she felt like she was engulfed by them.

“Open.”

Luisa’s brow furrowed, and she glanced uncertainly from the woman’s eyes to her finger then back again.  Maybe this was some sort of friendship ritual?  A trust thing?  She wasn’t sure, but when the woman’s gaze moved slowly down to her mouth and back up, Luisa’s lips instinctively parted for her, and when she moved her finger towards her mouth, they parted further, closing around it.

“Taste.”

Her tongue ran around her finger, curling to make sure she got every drop of the _strawberry, not raspberry_ jam, catching on the edge of her nail.  Then the woman removed her finger from between her lips, dragging it across her lower one, before drying it off with a napkin.  She glanced back up.

“Swallow.”

Luisa hadn’t realized she’d been waiting for the command.

“They expect us to be crazy—“

“I’m not crazy.”  The response was immediate and hushed, the taste of the strawberry jam still sweet on her lips.  “ _Don’t_ call me crazy.”

The woman nodded, curls brushing across the tan fabric on her shoulders.  “They expect us to _not be normal_.”  Her hands clasped together on the table, fingers interlacing, and Luisa noticed the bright red nail polish on each nail, the lack of it on the finger she’d licked.  “Why pretend that we are?”

“Your nail polish.”

“It was like that.”

She didn’t even look down.

“So you eat like that,” Luisa paused, considering, “to fuck with the nurses?”  She watched as the other woman leaned back in her seat, not saying anything, just watching her.  “Is that why you change your name?”  But she didn’t stop there, and as she continued, she missed the cloud passing across the sky blue of the woman’s eyes.  “Is that why you conduct them?  That’s why no one else sits with you; you like to fuck with...with _people_ , not just the nurses.  You’re fucking with me now.”

“It tasted better, didn’t it?”

Luisa hadn’t even started her own meal, but she didn’t have to.  That little bit of jam was the sweetest thing she’d ever tasted.

“What’s my name?”

“Rose.”

“And yours?”

“Luisa.”  She didn’t pause.  “Alver.”  As if her last name meant anything here, as if it meant anything to anyone.  Her father was the important one.  “Daughter of Emilio Solano, owner of the Marbella Hotel…and others.”  Too many others.  The Marbella was the one they stayed at the most, so its name was the easiest for her to remember.  It was also _closest_ , which meant that perhaps Rose knew where and what it was.  “How long have you been here?”

“Long enough.”  Her jaw tightened.  “You’ll eat with me for dinner?”

“Of course.  You’re lonely, right?  They shouldn’t be giving you so much space; they should be eating with you; you’re not bad at all.  People in school used to do the same thing with me all the time.  I think most of them didn’t really like me, but when you find your group or your person, you’ve got it made, and I was always able to find my group.  Maybe you just haven’t found yours yet.  Or maybe I just hadn’t gotten here yet.  If you want, I’ll be your people.  Person.  I’m just. _one_. person.  Not people.  I don’t know why I said people.”  Luisa looked up, not quite relaxed.  “You’ll tell me, if you want me to stop talking.  Or, you know,” and she gestured to Rose’s hands.  “Not that I expect you to let me lick your finger again but you’ll.  You’ll _stop me_.  Right?”

Rose just smiled.  Then she scooted her chair back with a long, loud screech of its metal legs against the tiled ground – _she’s fucking with the nurses_ – and stood up, carrying her still mostly full tray in one hand.  “I’ll see you at dinner, Luisa.”

Luisa watched her go, breath finally escaping through her lips.  She hadn’t been aware that she’d been holding it, that her ramble was just as much an excuse to take another breath as it was her natural tendency to fill the empty space between her and another person.  Then she glanced down at her hands, which had already begun to smooth jam across her toast finger by finger instead of with the knife she’d gotten specifically for the task.  On second thought, she popped one of her own fingers in her mouth.  Raspberry, and nowhere near as good.   _Sour_ , even.  She wasn’t prepared to eat the rest of her food like that, but as she tore apart her toast bit by bit and popped a bite into her mouth, she couldn’t help but smile.

So maybe this didn’t have to be _hell_ after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is shorter, but it felt like the right length for this chapter. I feel like the first one needed to be longer to get everything in, but this one not so much? Also maybe expect Alana in the next chapter. I thought about putting her in this one, but. Playing things kind of by ear here (and also really wanted to hold her off for chapter three anyway).


	3. Chapter 3

Luisa’s fingers traced the white curtains in Dr. Bloom’s waiting room, tucking bits of the intricate stitching beneath her shorn nails before pulling one back to peer outside the window.  One of the other nurses stood outside, leaning against the big, empty van, talking with another dark-haired woman she guessed to be her new therapist.  Her father might like the appearance of this nurse, she thought, if he were into brainier types (such as herself) instead of what she and Rafael liked to call the Cotton Belles: a group of women characterized by their scrawny, thin, underweight bodies and _typically_ blonde hair, although sometimes he threw a redhead or brunette in for good measure.  On second thought, the nurse might be a little too uptight, but she certainly fit the description: bone thin, with curly blonde hair pulled back into a tight little ponytail, fingers manicured and painted a bright pink.  Her bright eyes flitted from the woman Luisa assumed was her new therapist to the clipboard clasped against her chest and back again, then, once, a fleeting glance up to the window.

Luisa stepped back immediately, letting the lacy white curtain fall back into place, and paced back to the seat she was _supposed_ to be sitting in while she waited.  After a moment, she looked down at her own nails, which had been painted a transparent color before she’d gone to the hospital.  They’d cut them after she entered, one of the interns taking clippers to each one in turn.  Now the paint looked chipped, the edges rough where they weren’t cut into the pink.  There wasn’t even enough left to _bite_.

Carla sat in one of the other seats, hands in her lap, watching her.  She hadn’t needed to accompany her; in fact, Luisa would have far preferred to keep her sessions with her therapist to herself.  But if Carla really was just a figment of her broken psyche, if she really _did_ only exist within the confines of her own mind, then didn’t it stand to reason that whatever she knew, whatever she learned, Carla would know, too?  Could there even be true privacy with a hallucination?

The leather-backed chair squeaked as Luisa leaned against it, telling herself that when she had her own practice, the waiting room chairs would be _much_ more comfortable than this.  She wondered, idly, what age someone had to be for the distinction between _overactive imagination_ , as her father always said she had, and _broken psyche_ was made, and whether Carla was _always_ the product of a broken psyche or if she had simply evolved from a child’s imaginary friend into something much more malicious.

Not that _Carla_ was malicious.  Not like her mother’s hallucinations had been.

The door to her new therapist’s home shut with a deep echo – _home_ , not office, as though Dr. Bloom had no fear of her patients finding their way back if they experienced a sudden break and decided that killing her was their best option.  It was something that stood out to Luisa in her research on the little doctor, something that confused her even more now.  Didn’t she know better?  Didn’t she know that some of them could be a threat?

Was _she_ a threat?

Another creak as she shifted in her seat, trying to find a comfortable spot, and another _different_ sort of creak as the door to the waiting room opened.  Her eyes widened – she wasn’t _ready_! – and she brushed dust, hair off of her pants as she stood.  “Doctor Bloom, right?” she asked before even glancing to the other woman.

“Alana,” the doctor gently corrected, and Luisa was not surprised to find that she was right, that the woman talking to her nurse _was_ her therapist.  The woman’s voice was kind, and her smile was soft, but her eyes felt like shards of ice.  She held out one hand, and Luisa took it gratefully because it gave her something else to focus on, something very real and present.

Here was this woman in front of her.  Here was this woman who would help her be _normal_.  Whatever that was anymore.

“You’re Luisa, right?”

“Luisa Alver, yes, that’s me.”  Their hands parted, and hers brushed against her pants again, less consciously this time, the nervous little swing of being unsure what to do with them, of wondering if she’d be judged for clasping them in front of her like Carla still was, or behind her, or clapping them together.  She might be _almost_ a medical doctor, but her stint in the psychiatric bit of that was a long time ago.  She’d been fascinated by it, really, had started down that path during grad. school before realizing she could put herself to better use somewhere else and left it behind.  Her time as a resident in her hospital’s psych ward had been meant for next semester, but, well.  Look at how _that_ turned out.

Her eyes followed Dr. Bloom – _Alana_ – as she moved behind her desk, flicked once to Carla, who gave her a shrug, then returned to the doctor.  The nurse’s clipboard rested in her hands, and Luisa wondered if it was the equivalent of her files.  Did they even _have_ files on her yet?  She wasn’t sure.  She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

They would eventually, of course.  They _had_ to.  That was how hospitals kept in business: not the actual _healing_ of people, but the paperwork that could so easily be passed from one doctor to the other such that everything kept organized, tidy.  Oh, you’re Luisa Alver.  You have a history of depression, blackouts, extreme cramps.  You had pneumonia when you were twelve, but you still have your appendix.  You’ve never needed surgery.

Most business were like this, she’d come to learn.  Even her father’s.  _Especially_ her father’s.

Alana placed the clipboard on her desk and looked up.  She seemed even smaller behind the desk than she did standing beside her, which was saying something because the good doctor was _little_.  When Luisa had been researching mental institutions, she’d glimpsed the doctor’s photo, and _then_ she’d seemed larger.  It was the credentials, maybe, how _long_ they were on the tiny screen, how they stood off the page in the middle of the night, black against all that stark, _stark_ white.  There’d been mention of profiling for the FBI, and she’d wondered what _criminal_ psychology had to do with working at a mental institution.  But, well, it made sense, didn’t it?  The world thought they were crazy; the world thought they were just one step away from committing some inconceivably horrendous act.  Didn’t matter if it was _true_ or not.

_Am I a threat?_

“So, Luisa,” and Alana remained standing behind her desk for a brief moment, allowing their eyes to meet with a warm smile.  Her eyes seemed to sparkle, but Luisa was sure that was just a trick of the light.  Doctors weren’t mischievous.  ( _She_ might be, when she got her doctorate.  _If_ she got her doctorate, at this rate.  If she’d even get hired afterward, given her current history.)  “Let’s not stay in here.  The room feels a bit stuffy when it’s so _nice_ outside.”

And it struck Luisa that Alana Bloom was a strange little doctor.

“Uh, sure.”  Her eyes glanced over to Carla, as though telling her to stay put, because maybe there _was_ something that kept her from knowing everything she did, and if that was the case, she wanted this to herself.  As much as possible, anyway.

Alana’s smile broadened, as if she were relaxing into herself, and she breathed a sigh of relief.  “Good.  I always find a walk helps with introductions.  It keeps your mind moving, makes those awkward pauses feel more natural.”  She moved past Luisa and held the door open for her, shutting it behind her as they left Carla behind.

* * *

 

“Would you like some tea?”

“Hm?”  Luisa’s eyebrows shot up at Alana’s words.  She continued to follow her throughout the house, which seemed far too large for such a little, single woman.  Or maybe she _wasn’t_ single.  Luisa hadn’t noticed a wedding ring on her finger, but times being what they were, maybe it was an unconventional partnership.  Or maybe someone just hadn’t popped the question yet.  It really wasn’t any of her business.

“Would you like some tea?” Alana repeated as they entered what must have been the living space.  It was huge.

Luisa thought her father had some interesting décor choices with his odd abstractionist paintings and bright paint colors, so she knew what that felt like and was happily surprised to find that her therapist had none of those inclinations.  There was a fireplace in the center of the room, bordered on either side by large windows and glass doors.  Light flooded the space, catching on deep emerald green accents and soft browns.  Not quite _earthy_ so much as modern, chic, pops of warmth in what could so easily be a cold space.  A dog lay curled up on one of the sofas, head resting on a much more worn-out, beat up pillow.  Without thinking, she made her way in that direction, away from where Alana was leading her.

“Can I pet your dog?”  It came out much more formal than she’d normally speak (“ _PUPPY!_ ” and an excited clamoring over to the dog in question, pushing her face into its fur and yipping back and forth with it), but she couldn’t help it.  No matter how welcoming Alana Bloom might be, _she_ was all nerves.

“Sure.  I don’t see why you couldn’t.  She’s a _little_ tired; we had a huge walk before you arrived, but I’m sure she’d _love_ the attention.”  Then, a third time, without a hint of frustration, “Would you like some tea?”

The question finally cemented itself in Luisa’s mind.  “They told me I couldn’t have caffeine until they knew how it would mix with my meds.”  Her head pounded once in response.  It had been a constant pain, growing steadily, but with other things to focus on, she’d almost forgotten it was there.  She grimaced.

“My teas are all herbal.  Chamomile, ginger, peppermint, that sort of thing.  You can have some if you want.”

Luisa rubbed her hand through the dog’s bristly short fur, considering.  “No, thanks.  I’m not much of a tea person.  Unless you have anything with rose in it?”

“Fresh out of rose.”

“ _Darn_.”

The dog’s head perked up as Luisa continued to pet it, pushing its nose into the palm of her hand.  She grinned.  “You _like_ that, don’t you?  Don’t you?”  Then, without thinking, she called to the other woman, “What’s her name?”

“Applesauce.  It’s her favorite treat.”  Alana laughed, followed by a sharp _clunking_ sound.

Luisa’s head whipped from the dog in the direction of the nearby kitchen.  It was open to the living area so that she could easily see the little doctor on her knees on her countertop, rummaging through one of her cabinets.  “Do you need help with that?”

“No, no, I’ve got it.”  She pulled a package out of the cabinet then hopped back off the counter with a clack of her heels, turning to face Luisa with another grin.  “You forget I live here.”

“I forget _anyone_ lives here,” Luisa mumbled to herself as she turned back to Applesauce, what’s left of her nails scratching the top of the dog’s head.  “You are _such_ a good girl, aren’t you?  _Aren’t you?_ ”  The house still felt like it wasn’t really _real_ , like no one singular person and her dog needed a place this big, this luxurious.  Funny, how what _was_ real suddenly felt like it wasn’t and what _wasn’t_ – namely, Carla – could so easily feel like it _was_.  It made her head spin.

The kettle went off only a moment later with a high piercing sound, and soon Alana was at her side, a mug in one hand with what smelled like chamomile tea inside.  “You ready?”

“Yeah, just let me leave your _cute little dog_.”  Luisa gave Applesauce one more scratch behind her ears and stood.  Then she glanced at her pants, and her eyes widened.  There were little white furs stuck _all over_ her.  She rapidly brushed at them, trying to get them off.  “I didn’t think she would—“

Alana just laughed.  “Don’t worry about it.  You’re just with me, and if _I_ was worried about that, then _I_ would be crazy.”

“Don’t say that.”

Luisa’s response was immediate, fingers tightening in the fabric of her forest green sweater.  “You’re not crazy.”

_Am I a threat?_

_I’m not crazy._

_I could be a threat._

_Am I crazy?_

“Ok.”  Alana nodded once, and Luisa knew, even without the clipboard or a pencil or pen or paper, that her therapist was filing that comment away for further consideration.  _Patient does not like people calling themselves crazy._

 _No_ , she wanted to say, to try and clarify, _patient does not like_ crazy _._   But that didn’t really make much sense either, so she kept it to herself.

* * *

 

 _Not only_ did Alana Bloom have a massive house, but she had an _equally massive_ backyard.  On second thought, none of this should have been surprising, given that good psychiatrists, like good doctors, can make quite a lot of money, and it seemed like Alana simply repurposed hers into a secluded space all her own.  The little doctor’s hand gestured out in front of her, across the yard, and then towards the tree line behind the house.  “There’s a creek back there, if you’d like to see it.”

“No, I—“  Truth be told, Luisa really _did_ want to see the creek, but she thought it would be nice to just _walk_ , aimlessly, even, for now.  “Maybe some other time?”

“Of course.”

They began their walk around the property, mostly aiming in the direction of the woods, even if there was no real purpose or direction.  Luisa gazed – _discreetly_ , for once! – at the woman walking next to her, taking in the wrap dress that a part of her noted as absurd.  Well, not _absurd_ , because that sounded like she thought it was weird, and she didn’t, not really.  It just seemed expensive.  Not that she couldn’t afford to spend money on wrap dresses of her own, if she wanted them; she _could_ , and she would look _great_ in them (Luisa, in particular, _loved_ her legs.  She had _great_ legs, which was why if she was going for a date vibe or even just out on the town, she wore dresses or skirts.  To show off.  It made her feel nice, sometimes).  But wrap dresses weren’t really her style.  And she didn’t particularly like to think about spending that much money on clothes anyway.

(And she certainly wouldn’t wear them around a huge, expansive house in the middle of nowhere just casually.  Not that she thought Dr. Bloom did, and she certainly wouldn’t judge her if she _did_.  But there was something about all that money being wasted like this that left a bad taste in her mouth.)

“It seems so lonely out here,” Luisa said, finally.  Her shoes crunch on the frozen grass – and this, to her, wasn’t weird either.  At the Marbella, there was sand and beach and _warmth_ , but here, up further north, they were experiencing the last of their winter, the last shreds of their snow and frost.  For them, the weather was finally warming up, and they were shedding coats and hoods and those dark beanie caps that kept their heads warm, but this still felt _cold_ to Luisa, who wrapped her forest green sweater a little closer about her.  She was trying not to shiver.

“It’s not so bad.”  Alana lifted her mug of tea to her lips and took a sip.  “And after a long day of working with people, the emptiness, well, it’s nice.”

“Oh.”  Luisa nodded to herself, regretting that she hadn’t accepted the doctor’s offer of a mug of tea.  It would be _so_ nice to have something warm to hold in her hands right now.  “Doesn’t it make you worry, having your patients here out in the middle of nowhere?”

“About what?”

Luisa’s feet shuffled through the cold grass, and she paused, pressing her lips together, unsure how to word it.  “About us,” she said, half-curious and half-worried, “About your patients.  Aren’t you afraid one of us,” _one of them_ , Luisa wanted to amend, but that didn’t sound quite right either, leaving herself out of the equation, even if she was certain she wouldn’t do anything of the sort, “will get mad at you?  Or will finally break and come back for…?”  She couldn’t even finish the sentence.  She hated saying it in the first place.  Something about it felt wrong.

Alana lowered her cup of tea and kept walking, her footsteps lighter on the grass.  No crunch.  “Why would I worry when I have Applesauce?  She’s the fiercest guard dog I know.”  And she smiled, something much warmer than the current outdoor climate.

Luisa wanted to laugh.  Before, maybe, she would have.  But right now, the very idea just felt hollow.

It was another few moments of silent walking before Alana broke the silence.  “I never worry.”

Her hands hung low in front of her, fingers clasped around the top of her mug.  There was still some tea left in it, the last little dregs, too much to use for fortune-telling, not that anyone necessarily wanted that now.  Luisa couldn’t help but notice, couldn’t help but make the connection.  She wasn’t really into that sort of thing herself, but one of her old roommates, back before Carla, when she’d been a freshman in college and had the school mandated one instead of one she had chosen for herself, had been extremely into the whole thing.  Cards.  Tea leaves.  Astrology.  _All_ of it.  Luisa’d let her talk, sometimes, but it had never been of much interest to her.  Now, however, she vaguely wondered what her doctor’s tea leaves would say, if she could read them, what her own might say, if she’d taken a drink.

_Are we crazy?_

“I trust that all of my patients will get better.  If I’m not able to provide the help they need, I direct them to another therapist who is better able to meet those needs.”

“And if they get worse?”

“They haven’t yet.”  Alana’s smile shifted just the slightest bit, but Luisa didn’t catch it, too caught up in her own thoughts.

There were another few moments of silence as they walked, broken only by the cawing of geese overhead.  Then Alana asked, voice soft, “So.  Why are you here, Luisa?”

“Hm?”  Luisa looked up from her idle check of Alana’s footprints (despite the lack of sound, they _were_ there, so she, at least, was real.  She could comfort herself with that, maybe, although if she was able to create an entire person, it would stand to reason she could create their footprints as well).  Her gaze returned to the woman next to her.  “Come again?”

“Why are you here?  Not _here_ , you know.”  Alana’s free hand stretched out, palm toward the ground.  “But here.”  The hand lifted so that her fingertips touched her temple, and her eyebrows raised.  “I need to be specific,” she explained at the lifting of Luisa’s brows, the bright white of her eyes.  “Some of you can be really _sassy_ when you want to be.”

“Like Rose,” Luisa said with a light laugh.

Alana blinked twice.  “Who?”

“Rose,” Luisa repeated.  Then she shook her head.  “Sorry, maybe it’s Clara?  I think she just changed her name.  I call her Rose, but you might know her as Clara.  She likes to fuck with the nurses.  I mean, not _fuck with them_ , but play with them, fuck with them.  I think she might be fucking with me, but I’m not sure.  I’m supposed to eat dinner with her later.  No one sits with her; it’s _horrible_.”

In her rambling, Luisa didn’t catch the way Alana’s face froze, replaced by a much colder smile.  “Yes,” she said, finally, lifting her cup up for another sip, and the drink hid her face until it returned to normal. “Like Rose.”

 _It’s a distraction._   Even Luisa knew that.  She was distracting herself from the actual conversation she _should_ be having with her therapist by focusing instead on the conversation she _wanted_ to be having and the person she wanted to be figuring out: Rose.  It was a lot easier to analyze someone else and focus on them than it was to turn those same eyes on herself.  In truth, she was still scared of that.

But Alana persisted, just as careful and quiet as before.  “Why are you here, Luisa?”

“I _see_ people,” Luisa spat out, all at once, as though if she didn’t now, she wouldn’t ever.  Then her lips pressed together, and she shook her head, and then she grinned.  “I see _dead_ people.”  A little laugh, even if it’s just to herself.  “I mean, I don’t.  Not really.  I don’t see dead people.  Ghosts.  Whatever you want to call them.”  She gives a little hand wave of a gesture.  “I don’t even see _people_ ; I see _person_.  One.”  She pulled her hand out of her pocket and held one finger up, trying not to focus on the chopped edge of her nail.  It was too cold for her to leave it out bare like that, and she stuck it back in her pocket.  “Carla.”  She sighed.  “I’ve been _seeing_ her since I was six.  She’s been my best friend since forever.  We were…together.  Only she’s _not real_.”

The words felt like they weigh too much, dropping from her lips like stones.  Luisa shook her head again, once slow, then again, much more rapidly.  “It’s strange, saying it like that.  Like.  I’m not _crazy_.”  She hated the word, hated the bitter way it tasted on her lips, like it should be syrup but molded overnight.  “I just see someone.  Sometimes.  And no one’s ever said anything, even though I’ve had her all my life.  She didn’t want to meet my friends in college.  Or, no, she _did_ , but her schedule was always so busy that it never really worked out.  Actually, I think a lot of my friends just thought she was abusive.  She _wasn’t_.  Isn’t.  _Wasn’t._ ”  She waffled back and forth on the words for a moment before finally deciding to just leave it.  “You would think, after twenty-two years, someone somewhere at some point would have said something before now.  But no one’s said _anything_.  I mean, _no one_.  Isn’t that _crazy_?”

But Luisa didn’t stop, refused to let Alana get a word in edgewise (deflection!  Score a point for the hallucinating genius!), because she didn’t feel quite like she was done.  “I’m here because I see Carla and everything has been normal, everything has been fine, but then she recently started telling me to go break into surgeries and fix people, and I listened to her, and I did, even though I wouldn’t have listened to anyone else telling me to do that, and I don’t even know why I even listened to _Carla_ telling me to do that because—

“ _That’s_ the insane thing, isn’t it, not that I’m _seeing_ someone, but that I would listen to her and jump into these surgeries without the proper understanding of what’s going on and that I know nothing about and _think_ I can do something to help them that their surgeons aren’t already doing?”  Luisa’s lips pressed together again and she didn’t want to say it but she made herself say it anyway.  “I could have seriously _hurt_ someone, and I didn’t even _think_ about that, I just thought about wanting to help these broken people and _went_.”

“That’s not crazy.”

Luisa stopped, then, breath caught in her chest, and she looked to her therapist, really looked at the woman in the absurd little wrap dress, Dr. Bloom who wanted to be called Alana as a way to make her let her guard down, which was _really_ smart of her, introduce herself on a first name basis as if they were friends, bring her into her personal home, offer her tea, let her pet her dog, bring her outside to walk in the yard and talk at leisure as if they were friends, when really Alana Bloom was her doctor, her therapist, and Luisa was her patient, and that was the way their relationship _should_ and _needed_ to be.  She felt her cheeks growing flushed.  She was _sure_ they were, the way the heat was rising in her face, not because it was cold, but because she was getting emotional.

Some people see red, but out of the corner of her eye, Luisa almost saw a glimmer of curly ginger hair.

“It’s not?”

The word came out like a secret.

“Wanting to help people?  Believing you can?”  Alana shook her head.  “That’s not crazy.  That’s what we do, isn’t it, us doctors?  We want to fix people, to help them become the best them they can be, whatever that looks like.”

But Alana wasn’t looking at her, and after a moment of silence, she shook her head.  “C’mon, let’s go back.”

Luisa froze then, turning back to the huge house, focusing on the window to the waiting room, where Carla may or may not have been waiting.  “Is it time already?”

“Close.”  Alana brushed a hand through her hair once and took a deep breath.  “We can go to the stream next time, if you’re so inclined.  Or we can stay inside, with the fireplace, maybe make some s’mores.”  She smiled, relaxed again, and glanced over briefly, her cold blue eyes meeting Luisa’s warm hazel ones.  It’s a different feeling, looking into Alana’s eyes as opposed to looking into Rose’s, even though the shades were remarkably similar.  Rose made her feel like she was falling, like she was flying, like she was weightless, but looking into Alana’s just made her feel like she was frozen in place, like she’d been encased in ice and it was slowly starting to thaw, like she was suffering from hypothermia and struggling to breathe.  “I noticed you were shivering.  You’re from Miami, right?  It must feel so cold to you here.  Next time, say something, and we’ll go back inside where it’s warm.”

“You said it was _nice_ outside.”

“I did.  And it _is_.  If you’re from around here.”  Alana took another sip of her tea and grimaced as they started walking back.  Nothing but dregs, now.  “What I want you to think about before our next session is this—“  And she paused for a moment, her breath seeming to leave clouds in the still, cold air.  “Do you want to live with Carla, knowing that she isn’t real, or do you want her to leave?”

“I want to—“

Alana held up one finger, the same way Luisa had only moments before.  “I want you to _think about it_.  We won’t address it again tomorrow because I want you to take your time with it, but I want you to consider it.  Really think about what the best decision is for you and your mental health.  Whatever you decide, I’ll help you with, because as your therapist, my goal isn’t just to help you get better but to help you be more functional.  There will be consequences either way, and losing such an important, even vital, part of yourself after living with her for so many years may be extremely painful.  So – I want you to think about it.”

All of this was lost on Luisa as she focused on the one word that stuck out to her.  “We’re meeting tomorrow?”

“Yes.”  Alana smiled, scuffed her foot on the frozen grass, and there was finally that satisfying crunch.  “We won’t be able to meet every day, because I have other clients, including some in your institution, and other work requirements, but I do think it’s important that we meet again tomorrow.  Would that be good for you?”

Luisa’s eyes narrowed.  “Do I have a choice?”

“Not really,” Alana said with a small laugh, “but if you’re not up for it, I won’t make you come back so soon.”

“I—“  Luisa paused, and she glanced up to the sun, where it was finally poking through the clouds.  It was blinding.  “I’ll trust you.  You’re the doctor after all, and you know what’s best.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Luisa wasn’t sure if she did, especially given her own minor doctoral experiences.  Barging in on surgeries without any knowledge at the behest of a hallucination certainly wasn’t a good track record for that sort of thing, after all.  But she nodded anyway.  “Yes.”  A deep breath out.  “I do.”  Another wry little smile.  “I think you’ll do your best, anyway, and isn’t that _really_ all I could ask for?”

“No.”  Alana’s smile faded, briefly.  “I want to help you _get out_ , Luisa, and for that, we need to start immediately.”  Then she waved toward the little blonde nurse as the white van drove back into view, smile returning to her lips.  “I hope you’re prepared for this.”

And Luisa wasn’t sure if she was, but she was at least willing to give it a shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My interpretation of Alana is very much influenced (and perhaps even inspired by) one of my dear friends, Kat, who I met on tumblr. I don't link her here primarily because I don't think she would appreciate the attention, but I do want to make mention and offer credit where it may be warranted.
> 
> Also, I have a personal at aparticularbandit.tumblr.com if that's of interest to anyone. I tend to be better about discussing update stuff there.
> 
> My apologies for no Rose in this chapter other than referencing her. I thought about tacking a final scene with her on at the end, but I felt that the chapter stands better on its own without that.


	4. Chapter 4

Rose was bored.

This was not the first time this had happened, and she doubted it would be the last.  She lay back against the couch, bright blue eyes closed, her arms spread across its back.  The way she lounged across it, one might assume that it was _comfortable_ , but that was far from the truth of it.  The couch was thin, ratty, and threadbare, with cushions so flat they might as well not exist and springs that would pop out and sting her ass if she hadn’t sat on it so many times that she knew just where to sit without getting herself hurt.

She didn’t intend to use this information against the new girl just yet, but maybe she would in the future.  It was almost a sort of solidarity, a way to be _more included_ among the other patients – getting her ass sprung by the couch, particularly getting talked into it by the all-too-lovely redhead who _won’t_ let her know where to sit and will only give her a blank look when she _winces_ in pain.  It had happened to every new resident since Rose arrived (there had been a few months of _no new arrivals_ after her, which gave her plenty of time to grow accustomed to the best spots on the couch), and it was something she planned to continue with the new residents until she left.

But not today.

The new girl was _too_ new, and if she fucked her with the couch this early in the game, that didn’t leave enough room (or trust) for her later schemes.  And, yes, there was some thought over what she could possibly do to her, but after so many residents going and coming, she was getting tired of the game.  Each resident might have their own unique set of quirks, but there was only so much she could do without reusing some tricks.

Rose took a deep breath of air that tasted like recycled plastic and sanitizer and let it out, fingers tightening their grip on the couch back.

“ _Alice._ ”

The word hissed through her lips, the hush of a whisper.

She didn’t have to _see_ the blonde girl to hear her prosthetic clunk-clunk-clunking down the hallway, didn’t even have to hear the prosthetic to know the woman was standing only a few feet behind the couch with her diary tucked tight in her hands.  It was that time of day.  _Everything_ in Belle Reve was so _measured_.  In a few more minutes, Jessica Rabbit would come in with Betty Boop, give her the stink eye, and then walk with her mute friend to the television room, where they’d put on some old cartoon and sit with the patients who couldn’t move and relive their glory days.  Right now, Alice was going on her daily walk around the institute with her tattered old book.

Rose would sit on the couch with her eyes closed and wonder how much it would kill Jessica if she broke into her room and killed her rabbits.

She hadn’t done that last one yet, obviously.  Killed the rabbits.  But she’d thought about it, thought about how _white_ Jessica’s face would get – _the horror, the horror!_   It wasn’t that she thought it was a particularly bad idea, and it wasn’t that she cared anything about Jessica in particular.  Neither of those kept her from acting.  It was more that she could only play that particular trick _once_ , and she would rather wait until the most _opportune_ moment to execute her plan.  Whatever it was she ended up deciding to do with the annoying little creatures.  Right now, Jessica trusted her to stay seated on the couch, just like she had been doing for the past few weeks, with her eyes closed and her head tilted back as though she were relaxing, and as long as Jessica believed her actions were as predictable as _everyone else’s in the institute were_ , she didn’t have to worry.

Rabbit stew just sounded _so_ much better than whatever else they were supposed to be having for dinner later.

Not that there would be enough for _everyone_ , mind you.  Not with just those two scrawny little rabbits.  Just enough for Jessica and her friend.  And maybe a few choice pieces for herself, if Rose was so inclined.  _If_ that was the way she decided to dispose of them.  If she didn’t decide to just leave their mangled bodies in their cages.  Or convince someone else to do it for her, convince them that the rabbits scratch-scratch-scratching their little claws on their mats were a terror, bringing it up over and over and over until it was all they could think about, until they just _had to sto that noise, they just had to stop it!_

Everyone would know it was **her** , of course.  They always did.  But, just as with the other times, they wouldn’t be able to prove a single thing.  Just a bunch of hearsay from another one of their _crazy_ mental patients.

_“I’m not crazy.”_

_Not normal_ then.

Rose wondered, briefly, if _insane_ would have the same effect on the new girl that _crazy_ did, or if it was just _crazy_ that tripped her buttons.

Alice finally moved – being called out for simply walking by probably made her flinch; Rose didn’t physically see it, with her eyes still closed as they were, but she’d been in here just as long as Alice had – _longer_ , even – and the blonde was skittish _at best_.  Her prosthetic clunked a little harder on the tile floor as she stepped forward again.

“ _Al-ice._ ”

Rose tilted her head back and opened her eyes.  Her red hair fell back between her and the couch, a sort of protection from the rough, dingy yellow fabric.  (Maybe it was stained.  Piss.  It certainly smelled like it.)

“Come sit with me.”

Alice blinked twice, but her knuckles grew white as she gripped her tattered diary a little tighter.

“I’ll even let you sit _exactly_ where I’m sitting now.”  Rose kept her eyes on Alice, making sure to blink every now and again.  Appear normal.  As normal as she could be _believed_ to be in a place like this.  “I wouldn’t sit somewhere on the couch were I would get _hurt_ , would I?  So if _you_ sit in _this exact spot_ , you should—“

And _there_ was Jessica Rabbit with her stink eye and that annoyed, false concerned glare from her to Alice.  She gave Betty Boop a pat on the shoulder and whispered something in her ear.  Rose imagined it: _“You go on ahead without me, Betty, and I’ll be there in a minute”_ followed by Betty’s glance over to where she sat on the couch, ignoring both of them, and _“It’s okay, Betty.  I can take care of myself”_ before Betty would finally blink once, give Rose the same exact hate stare Jessica did, and then turn with her head held high, haughty, as she joined the vegetables in front of the tv.

“Alice,” a hesitation as Jessica considered what to say, “ _dear_ ,” another hesitation, “is she bothering you?”

“You can’t even use my _name_.”

Jessica brushed her hands together then crossed them, fingers tapping on her arm where a long purple glove might once have ended, if she were _actually_ Jessica Rabbit and not just some delusional redhead who’d watched way too many cartoons when she was younger and decided that being a cartoon and being married to a little white rabbit was significantly better than whatever her fucked up life had originally been.  And, honestly, what sort of _fucked up_ did her life have to be for her to think that was _good_?  Even if it wasn’t a _conscious_ decision, somewhere her mind had considered that a better truth than reality.

“Alice, dear, is _Clara_ bothering you?”

“That’s not my name.”

Rose closed her eyes.  It was a power play, of course, like so many other things both inside and outside of the institute, only this was one no one else could win.  If they used the name she wanted, they were under her control because they listened to her.  But if they used her real name, her _birth_ name, they were _still_ under her control because they wanted nothing more than to prove her wrong, to make themselves feel superior to her by forcing it on her, as if it would actually _annoy_ her.

The truth of the matter was that Rose didn’t much _care_ which name they used for her.  She just liked knowing which side they were on.

“That’s not the name you want to use, but it _is_ your name.”

“Alice knows my name.  Don’t you, Alice?” she asked, opening her eyes again and focusing on the blonde.

Alice nodded once, furtively, blonde curls bouncing on her shoulders.  She shifted her weight to her prosthetic and winced.  An improper fit.  Not a _permanently_ improper fit, just one that shifted based on the day.  Back when Alice thought she and Rose were friends, she had explained as much, writing it down in her little book and handing it over to her, pointing insistently to her tiny looping script.

Another thing Rose wanted to do again.  Steal Alice’s diary.  Read the newest updates.  Leave smudged pencil fingerprints behind so that she knew _someone_ had read it but couldn’t figure out who.  (Everyone would tell her it was Rose, and she might even believe it, but that didn’t help her hide the book better while she slept.)

“Why don’t you tell Jessica what my name is?”

Alice blinked twice.

“You don’t have to _say_ anything, Alice,” Jessica said, her gaze narrowing, as if the heat of it would make Rose wither, “and it’s not fair of Clara here to ask you—“

“I didn’t ask her to _say_ anything.  Did I, Alice?”  Rose’s gaze didn’t waver, focused entirely on the girl to the ignorance of the long-legged redhead standing next to her.  She meets Alice’s eyes, a shade lighter than her own and much warmer, makes sure the other girl acknowledges her gaze, then lets it drop to the book and slowly wander back up.  “You can tell her my name.  You’ve got it written there, don’t you?”

“This is absurd.”

“To you, maybe.”  Rose didn’t glance over to Jessica, didn’t even give her the time of day, other than words, which meant so little.  “Alice, if you want to join me on the couch, sit right here where the springs won’t hit you, just correct the rabbit there—“

“I’m not a rabbit.”

“—and tell her what my name is.”

Truth be told, Alice might not even know about her newest name change.  But that wasn’t the point.  If she used any name _other_ than Clara, that was a side.  If she used Clara, that was another.

Of course, all sides were opposite to Rose herself.  It was more about whether Alice perceived herself to be on _Rose’s_ side or if she perceived herself to be on _Jessica’s_ side.

To control perceptions without being particularly controlled by it.

 _That_ was what Rose wanted.

Alice’s lips pressed together into a thin line as she struggled to decide what to do, and, eventually, she hesitantly began to open her book—

\--only to shut it immediately, jumping as the front door shut.

The door at the front didn’t _slam_ shut, but it _clicked_ with the sound of the locks keeping them inside as the door slid back into place.  _Can’t let any of the ~~crazy~~_ not normal _people out in the real world unwatched, can we?_   All at once, Alice’s eyes blinked, once as though waking up, then again, multiple times, much more rapidly.  Her gaze moved from Rose to the person entering the room and back again.

Nothing measured, so that must mean—

“Luisa.”  Jessica’s voice first, her gaze shifting from Rose to where she assumed the new girl must be standing.  “How was your first therapy session?”

Rose still hadn’t moved, still kept her gaze on Alice.  It wasn’t a power play, wasn’t meant to make the new girl think she wasn’t _acknowledging_ her, was just a _watching_.  The blonde’s gaze had dropped almost to the floor, and she shifted in her prosthetic again.  Sometimes, Rose imagined she heard a creak like that of a door closing in an old abandoned house, even though she knew that Alice’s fake leg didn’t make any such noise.  (And, if it did, wouldn’t that drive Alice _crazy_?  Maybe _that_ was why she couldn’t speak, because she always only heard the creak of her stump leg, and it was so loud in her mind that it overcame and echoed off anything else she wanted to say.)

“ _Al-ice._ ”

Her voice was a hushed whisper again, but the blonde heard her and glanced up anyway, eyes wide and startled.

Rose lifted a hand and waved to her, and the blonde tentatively raised a few fingers of her left hand and waved back before scurrying away.

That was all she needed.

Rose rolled her shoulders, not quite stretching them, not feeling the sharp _pop_ of her bones, then sat up, finally letting her gaze fall on the new girl where she still stood just within the shut doors.  She hadn’t gone very far at all, only a few steps past the doorway, her forest green sweater wrapped tight around her.  It wasn’t even that cold in Belle Reve; the nurses had the heat ratcheted up, even though the snow outside was finally beginning to melt; but she gave a half-hearted shiver, as though returning to herself.  Then her brown eyes glanced up, as though she were finally becoming aware of her surroundings, and they widened.  “Huh?”

“Oh, dear, I felt that way after my first session, too.”  Jessica stepped forward, shoes tapping on the tiled floor, and for a moment, Rose imagined that she was wearing heels instead.  It fit her mental picture better.  Stripper heels.  “Do you want to talk about it?  Or Betty and I were just about to watch tv, if you would like to join us.”

“No, I—“  Luisa didn’t look at anything in particular, avoiding Jessica’s gaze.  “I don’t really want to talk about it.  Or watch anything.  But don’t let me keep you from what you were planning on doing!  I’ll just, uh, I’ll just,” and her eyes glanced up, lighting on where Rose sat on the couch, and she relaxed, _smiled_ , even, “I’ll just stay in here!”  She moved toward the couch and sat down before anyone could say anything.  “And sit with Rose— _ouch_.”  She winced, rubbing a hand across her lower back, but before Jessica could say anything, she looked back up, meeting her eyes.  “I’m fine, really, I’m fine.  You go.  I’ll stay.  Have fun!”  Another wince.  “Really.  Fine.  _Definitely_ fine.”

“Here.”

Rose stood, leaving one hand on the back of the couch, propping herself up onto her long legs.  Then, without glancing to the other redhead behind them, she placed her hands on Luisa’s hips, slowly shifting her into her previous position on the couch.  She met the other woman’s eyes, and this close, she could see that they were really hazel, not brown, the outer rims a mixture of the same forest green she wore in her sweater.  “Does that feel better?”

“Hm?”  Luisa’s brows raised, as if she hadn’t been paying attention, and the timbre of her voice seemed pleasantly content.  Then her eyes widened again.  “Oh, yeah!  Yeah, this is, this is _much_ better, definitely better,” and she didn’t glance away.  “Thanks.”

Rose didn’t move her hands from their place on Luisa’s hips, and she didn’t look up to provide any visual acknowledgment to the redhead still standing behind the couch with her arms crossed.  “Didn’t you hear her, Mrs. Rabbit?”  She kept her gaze on Luisa’s eyes.  “Don’t worry.  I’ll take _good_ care of her.”

And she didn’t have to hear it to know what Jessica was mumbling under her breath as she left: _Sure you will._

And she would.

* * *

 

Luisa wasn’t sure what Rose was doing, but she liked it.

Or, really, she _knew_ what she was doing.  The hands on her hips.  She was helping to move her in the exact right position so that _whatever_ it was that stabbed into the seat of her buttocks would _stop_ stabbing her.  More importantly, she was giving up her _own_ seat so that Luisa could have a better one.  She was being **nice**.

But all Luisa could think about was the gentle touch of the long fingers careful on her waist and whether or not they would be just as gentle _elsewhere_ , all she could notice was the warmth of the _not too terribly comfortable_ cushion beneath her, all she could see was the bright blue of the eyes staring into her own.  And when Rose said she would _take good care of her_ , she couldn’t help but think _yeah, you will_ with the slightest of leans forward before giving her head a good shake and lowering her gaze so that she could stay focused on the here and now and not whatever fantasies those hands and that warmth and those eyes were giving her.  _Delusional._   That was what she was.  Occasionally psychotic.  _Definitely_ delusional.

“So,” Rose plopped, almost _carelessly_ so, given the stabbing, on the other end of the couch, leaning against it without any grimace of pain as though it were her throne, one arm spreading across the back and the other across the high arm as she settled comfortably into the corner, “what’s your diagnonsense?”

Luisa’s brows furrowed for a moment, trying to place the line, because she was sure she’d heard it somewhere before.  Then her eyes lit up.  “You watched that movie, too?”

Rose didn’t say anything, but one edge of her lips crooked upwards in what Luisa _hoped_ meant she had.

“Did you read the book?” she asked, excited.

But the smile on Rose’s lips froze and her head turned slightly, as though examining herself.  “What book?”

“It’s based on a book.  Same name.  Memoir, actually, _nothing_ like the movie.  But there’s bits and pieces you can pick up that were the same.  People, obviously.  And the tunnels, although they made those _a lot_ different in the movie, with the bowling and the huge fight and everyone being able to get down there without the nurses noticing, and there aren’t tunnels under Belle Reve, are there?”  But Luisa didn’t leave room for Rose to get a word in edgewise, and she shook her head, pushing the thought from her mind.  “I mostly watched it for Angelina Jolie, you know, because after _Gia_ —“  Her voice dropped off, and she smiled, a little secret thing.

“Much better movie,” Rose said, and she hadn’t been _unrelaxed_ before, but she seemed to feel a little more in her element now.

“ _Depends on who you ask_ ,” Luisa admitted, hand wibble-wobbling in the air, “but after _Gia_ , I was kind of obsessed with her, you know?  Ate up **everything** she was in.”

Rose nodded, lips a thin line that Luisa couldn’t quite read.  “She went a different route than the other woman did.  The blonde.”

“Elizabeth Mitchell.”

Again, Rose nodded, and there was silence for a few moments.  Not because Luisa was struggling to think of anything else to say, but because she was winding the threads of her sweater between her hands, trying not to sit uncomfortably, trying to stay _focused_ on the conversation itself and not just the woman seated next to her, so close she could almost smell strawberries (although that was cloaked by the stench of the couch itself) and yet—

“You’re good with names.”

“I’m good with a lot of things.”  Luisa’s glance shifted, head tilting one way and then back the other.  “Just most of them _aren’t very good_.”  It didn’t even strike her that Rose hadn’t made mention of why she’d watched _Gia_ , only worked on the assumption that she _had_ seen it, other than mentioning Liz, and it was the simple acknowledgement and commentary that led to the realization that she _had_ seen it.  She’d seen it.  Luisa knew it unconsciously, and she wasn’t thinking about it.

Yet.

Rose tilted her head forward in an encouraging gesture.  “Name a few.”

“Drinking.”  It was the first thing that came to mind, out of her mouth before she could think to stop it, and the admittance didn’t feel _wrong_ so much as it did _sad_.  She’d already admitted to herself that she was an alcoholic, that she was addicted to alcohol the way Willow was addicted to magic (dark or otherwise), even if the reasons and motivations behind it might be different.  It just. felt. _good_.  And that wasn’t something she knew how to explain to anyone.  Not really.

And she _didn’t_ want to try to explain it to Rose.

“Sex.”  It’s a small, immodest boast that a more subtle person wouldn’t have said out loud, but Luisa wasn’t subtle.  She _could_ be, but honestly, what was the point?  Either be honest, or don’t.  And sex was a _much_ easier topic for her to expand on than _drinking_ was.

Honestly, _why_ was that the first thing out of her mouth?  Seriously, why?  Was she _trying_ to ruin this?

_Why did she keep thinking that way?  Mental.  Hospital.  Luisa.  You are not here to pick up chicks._

But the smile on her lips was smug as she settled into the spot Rose had so carefully moved her into.  She tucked her legs up underneath her, half-sitting on her knees.  Much better.

Rose’s eyebrows raised, and she nodded once, and the edges of her lips spread back as they curled under, and Luisa _knew_ that she was trying to hold back a laugh.  Good!  She felt somewhat accomplished.  She _wanted_ to make Rose laugh, wanted to hear what that would sound like, see if it was something she could even _do_ , if she tried hard enough, or maybe if she wasn’t even trying at all.

“I could show you sometime, if you wanted.”

The words were out of her mouth before she thought about them, and it was in the slower nod that Rose now gave her that she finally thought of _Gia_ and _they were lesbians_ and she felt almost like maybe, just maybe, she’d said the right thing, and for a moment she forgot (again) that they were in a mental institute and they weren’t going to let anything happen and maybe hitting on someone else in her ward wasn’t necessarily the _best_ idea, since she didn’t know what Rose was (and Rose, despite asking, still didn’t know exactly what _Luisa_ was) and maybe that made things easier.  She didn’t want to know just yet.  Not really.  And she didn’t want _Rose_ to know just yet.

Or maybe that kind of transparent honesty would be good for their relationship.

 _Why_ was she thinking relationship?  She hadn’t even been in this place _one day_ and already she’s letting her mind get distracted and think about _this_.

It was far easier than trying to consider what Dr. Bloom – _Alana_ – wanted of her.

_Do I want to get rid of Carla?_

“What’s yours?”

Luisa’s hands tightened on her sweater before moving to her knees.  “Your diagnosis, I mean.  You don’t have to tell me.  If you don’t want to.  I mean, I understand if it’s something you want to keep _private_ , but you don’t really seem all that—“

“Crazy?”

“— _not normal_ to me.”  Other than the fucking with the nurses, and the _maybe_ fucking with her, but if Rose had been here as long as she’d implied she’d been here, then maybe, _just maybe_ , it was something to do with boredom.  Then Luisa wondered what it was that made Rose so _bad_ she’d been here that long and wasn’t getting better.  Were there things that _couldn’t_ get better?

_Will I get better?_

“You don’t seem _not normal_ to me, either.”  Rose reached forward and placed her hand on one of Luisa’s, a very careful (and potentially calculated) measure.  “Normal isn’t always a good gauge of _health_.  Did Dr. Bloom not tell you that?”

Luisa shook her head.  “I don’t think we got that far.”  Her gaze narrowed, and she looked down, focusing on her hands and the lighter, paler, freckled one on top of hers.  “Maybe tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Or whenever we start meeting regularly.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you aren’t ready.”

“No, it’s.  It’s okay, you know?  Better to be talking about it here with other people who might understand it than with my father or my brother who really, _really_ don’t.”  Neither of them had used the word _crazy_ , but she’d felt them think it, felt it echoing in her father’s head over and over, that worry that she would end up just like her mother, as though she weren’t afraid of the exact same thing, as if she weren’t afraid that, if this continued unchecked, she wouldn’t end up standing on the edge of a bridge, looking into the waves, waiting for the best moment to jump, as if she weren’t afraid that one day her hallucinations and her reality would become so merged and intertwined that she couldn’t tell one from the other.

She already couldn’t tell.

Luisa wasn’t even sure where Carla _was_ anymore, if she was sitting behind her on the couch, still wincing in pain that couldn’t exist, or if she was sitting in the back of her mind, on the tip of her tongue, that hair in the back of her throat that she couldn’t reach and just had to, eventually, swallow.

“What did you say your diagnosis was?”

“I didn’t,” Rose said with a grin, and then she nodded in Luisa’s direction, the grin disappearing.  “ _You_ didn’t either.”

“Oh.”  Right.  She’d avoided it.  She’d meant to avoid it.  The whole _diagnonsense_ thing and shifting the conversation to _Gia_ and _Angelina Jolie_ and something much easier than talking about herself.  Or.  Still talking about herself, just not _that_ part of it.  She brushed a hand through her long brown hair nervously, tucking strands of it behind one ear.  “Bipolar I.  With psychosis.”  On second thought, Luisa untucked the hair from behind her ear.  Do that too often and the hair could form to the shape of the ear, keeping the wave even without the tuck, and that was not the way she liked her hair.  She liked it straight, and for the most part, it hung that way.  Not like the crinkles in Rose’s dark red hair.  She already loved those crinkles.  “I see people.  Person.  _One._ ”  She held up one finger but avoided looking at the other woman’s eyes.  It had become route, explaining it that way.  People.  Person.  _One._   Having a format to it made her feel like she wasn’t…like she wasn’t _not normal_ , like it was just something she could say and pass over without having to go into detail.

People.

Person.

_One._

“How do you know it’s only one?”

Rose’s voice was soft, curious.  Her inquisitive blue eyes weren’t soul-searching.  It was just a question.  Just an ordinary question.

Luisa stopped the finger fiddling with the end of her forest green sweater, her eyes widening as she tried to focus on the threads.  There was a lump in her throat.  For a moment, she felt like she couldn’t breathe.  “I...I guess I don’t.  Not really.  As far as I know, there’s only the one.  Carla.  Her name’s Carla.  But there might be more.  I might be hallucinating _you_ , for all I know.  None of this could be real.  I could be locked away in a mental asylum and not even know it and maybe one day I’ll wake up and be in a cage and not know how or where or when I got there and maybe I’ll think _that’s_ the hallucination instead of this and maybe I’ll never really know because—“

Rose’s hand gripped Luisa’s, tightening, a gentle sort of squeeze, and Luisa’s voice stopped.

“You think we might not be real?”

“I…I don’t know.  I don’t know _how_ I would, I—“

Luisa knew that _she_ was real.  She, herself, was real.  Her father, Emilio, was real.  And Rafael.  _He_ was real.  Outside of that, she wasn’t sure.  But if _they_ were real, and _they_ interacted with someone, _that person_ must be real.  So, the institute was real.  Nurse Brooks must be real.  And if _Brooks_ was real and _she_ was interacting with someone, then _they_ must be—

“Hey.”

Luisa felt frozen in her own thoughts, even as she tried to parse through them, even as she tried to give herself something that could actually ground her in the here and now, and her shorn nails try to dig into her flesh but there’s no nail there anymore to give her that sharp, _painful_ feeling.  She could hear what Rose said, but it felt far away, hollow.

Not real.

“ _Hey._ ”

Rose’s hand squeezed hers again, and Luisa looked up into the other woman’s eyes.  She didn’t even realize that she’d started shaking again, this time not from the cold.  It was far too hot in here to be cold.  Her face was flushed.  Again.

“You’re real, right?” she whispered, but it didn’t matter what Rose _said_ because she didn’t know if she would still be certain.  She didn’t know if she _could_ be certain.

“Trust me, I’m _very_ real.”  Rose lifted her hand, and Luisa grabbed for it, wanting something to hold onto, even if she wasn’t sure it was really there at all.  But instead of letting her take her hand again, Rose cupped Luisa’s face.  “Close your eyes.”

Luisa nodded and immediately closed her eyes.  The darkness did **not** help.

“Take a deep breath.”

_Okay._

“Hold it.”

_Okay._

“Keep holding.”

_Okay._

“Let it out.”

_O—_

“ _Slowly._ ”

_\--kay._

Luisa nodded once, trying unsuccessfully to stop her shaking, trying to focus on her breathing.  It wasn’t easy, but she _tried_.  But no matter how hard she tried, she kept shaking, and it seemed like trying to _stop_ shaking only made it _worse_.

Maybe she _was_ crazy.

“Now,” Rose continued, her voice hushed, “focus on what you’re feeling right now.”

Luisa could feel herself straining to hear her voice, how quiet it was in the large room, full of echoed chit-chatter.  But if she focused, sometimes it felt like the only thing she could hear clearly, despite everything else that was so much louder and jumbled.

“Not on your emotions, but on your sensations.”

Luisa’s brow furrowed.  _My what now?_

“Fell my hand on your cheek.”

_It’s warm._

“Feel my hand on yours.”

Rose’s other hand moved into Luisa’s lap, and she took it immediately, tangling their fingers together, clinging to her for dear life, as though she were drowning in her own mind.

“This is real.”

“How do you—“

“ _This is real._ ”

Rose’s voice was insistent.

“What if _you’re_ not real?  What if you’re lying to me?  What if I trust you and you turn out to be just another hallucination just like Carla is?  What if—“

“Luisa.”

One brow lifted.  “What?”

“If you believe in me enough to suck my finger without questioning it, _maybe_ you can trust me enough to let me ground you.”

Luisa took another, shuddering breath.  She had a point.  Of course she had a point.  Why wouldn’t she have a point?  Her lips pressed together and, after another breath and with her eyes still closed, she nodded.  “Focus on what I feel,” she repeated.

“Sensations.  Not emotions.”

“Your hand on my cheek.”

“My hand on your cheek.”

“Your hand on my hand.”

“My hand in your hand.”

Luisa took another breath, held it, and let it out, slowly.  Body still shaking, she nodded again.

“Your hand on my cheek.”

“My hand on your cheek.”

“Your hand on my hand.”

“My hand in your hand.”

She shook once, hard, and her shaking continued, but smaller, as though cold, even though she felt like she was burning up.

“Do you feel anything else?”

She tugged her lower lip between her teeth.  “The rough fabric of my sweater under my hand.”

“Good.”

“The very _thin_ couch cushion under my ass.”

“Good.”

She could almost hear the amusement in Rose’s voice at that last comment.

“You’re brushing your thumb along my cheek?”

“Yes.”

“And now you’re brushing your hand through my hair.”

“Yes.”

“I can feel your breath on my lips.”  Luisa paused, then, “You’re so warm.”

“I’m not warm; you’re _cold_.”

“I feel like I’m burning up.”  But she shivered once again.  “Alana had us walk outside.  She said it was nice today.”

“You aren’t from around here.”

It was a statement, not a question, but Luisa answered it as though it were one anyway.  “No.  Miami.”

“You don’t have seasons.”

“No.  It’s warmer in here, though.”  Luisa let out a small laugh, uncertain.  “Not just your hand.  Or the couch.  Or your breath.  It’s _actually_ warm in here.”

There was silence, then, as Luisa focused on what she could feel.  _This is real._   And whenever her mind started to question that, she focused back.  _Hand on my cheek; hand on my hand; breath on my lips._   Her breathing slowed, her shaking slowly stopping with one final shudder.

“Is this helping?” Rose asked, as the silence lengthened.

“Yes.  I…I think so, yes.”  Luisa paused, letting out a deep breath.  “Can I open my eyes now?”

A silence that she took as a hesitation, then, finally, “Yes.”

Luisa opened her eyes to find that Rose was sitting much closer than she had been before.  Of course she was; Luisa should have known.  The whole _breath on her lips_ thing.  Now she could feel her cheeks heating up, different from the burning of before, that sort of embarrassed flush, and she wanted to avert her eyes, but she couldn’t stop herself from continuing to look into Rose’s blue ones.  Like _flying_.  But with someone tethering her to the ground, so that she didn’t disappear entirely.

“Is this okay?”

Rose’s eyes searched Luisa’s – she could tell from the shifting of her pupils – and she _winced_ once.

Luisa didn’t say anything, just nodded, and then, exhausted, leaned forward, head just passing by Rose’s to rest on her shoulder.  “Is this?”

She could feel Rose nod, the brush of her crinkled red hair across the side of her face.  The hand that had cupped her cheek now moved to her back, where Rose began to rub gentle circles.  “If you start thinking like that again, come find me.  Wake me up.  I’ll help you work through it again.”

Luisa nodded against Rose’s shoulder.  She wasn’t sure that the nurses would allow her to break into Rose’s room or wake her up, if she needed help and couldn’t find her.  In fact, she still wasn’t sure what all was _allowed_ in the institution.  Could she even go in Rose’s room at all?  _Did she want to?_

She found, with her head pressed against the redhead’s shoulder, with the soft silk-like fabric on her skin, that she really, really did.

The calming circling motions on her back paused for a moment, but Luisa didn’t move, instead continuing to lean against Rose.  “Is something wrong?”

“No.  Alice was just concerned about you.”

 _Alice?_   Luisa’s brow furrowed, and she turned her head to see a blonde woman standing next to the couch.  _Oh._   “You’re Alice.”

The blonde nodded furtively.  She opened her book, turned to a page, and held it out for her.  Then, before Luisa could even read very far, she rapidly pulled it back, took a pencil, and scratched something out, writing something else above it.  Then she handed the book back.

 _It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Luisa.  It looked like you might be having a panic attack, and I wanted to help.  I see that Clara_ – and here she’d scratched out the name, penciling another one above it – _Denise is taking care of you.  Is that right?_

“Yeah.  That’s…that’s right.  Rose is helping.  Rose is helping a lot.  Thanks for checking.”  Her lips pressed together as she watched Alice take her book back and walk away.  She slowly sat up again, shaking her head once, then asked, “Rose, how many names do you _have_?”

“I’ve been here a long time, Luisa.  It helps break up the monotony of being here.”  Rose lifted one shoulder in a shrug.  “Which name did she use?”

“Denise.”

“That’s an older one.”  Rose glanced briefly in the direction Alice had gone.  “I’m surprised she remembered it.”

“How old?”

“Old.”

Luisa nodded then shivered again.  She started to lean her head back against Rose’s shoulder before pausing, glancing up to meet her blue eyes again.  “Is it okay if I--?”

“Yes.”

She started to move a little closer, so that she could curl up against her, until a spring jabbed her knee.  She grimaced.  Then Rose moved her hands, letting them linger on Luisa’s hips again, and guided her past the couch’s teeth until she was sitting just beside her on the other corner of the couch.  As soon as she was close enough, Luisa curled into Rose, and as Rose held her comfortably against her chest, Luisa relaxed against her with a sigh.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

As Rose began stroking a hand through her hair again, Luisa let her eyes shut, her breathing slowing again.  She could feel herself fading, not quite awake, comfortable enough to nap, if they allowed it.  Before she did, though, she struggled to ask, to _make_ herself ask, “Could you maybe stick to one name while I’m here?  I think that will help with this whole…unreality. thing.”  Her eyes opened briefly, and she bit her lower lip.  “Unless that’s part of your diagnonsense.”

“It’s not.”

Luisa nodded once and closed her eyes again, relaxing until she realized Rose hadn’t given her an answer.  “So, if it’s not, do you think, maybe, it’d be okay to--?”  Her voice faded away.

She barely heard the _I’ll consider it_ as she dozed off, and maybe the answer was one she imagined, although _she_ didn’t want to consider _that_.  It was easier, in this case, to believe that Rose heard her and would concede, especially given that it seemed she already was.

But she didn’t want to think about that right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rose is using a grounding technique that is modified from something I have used in therapy. We typically call it mindfulness.
> 
> That said, I'm not a therapist, so don't, like, use it and think it'll fix everything, because, like, I'm not a therapist. It helps me sometimes.


	5. Chapter 5

Luisa dozed, and through her stupor, she heard another conversation.  There was a voice that sounded familiar, maybe like Brooks, if she wanted to place it, and the slightest shifting of the woman holding onto her.  She thought it was a dream, and when she finally woke up, nose nuzzled into the neck of the pale woman beneath her, she could only remember the voices and the tone, but not the content.  Because she could not remember the words, she didn’t choose to think on it any more than she might another dream, and, eventually, it faded away entirely, only the vaguest hint of something that, if prompted, might tug on the back of her mind.

* * *

 

“ _You_ look comfortable.”

Rose’s hand paused its soothing strokes through Luisa’s hair, but her gaze did not lift to meet the dark-haired nurse standing just in the entryway.  “She came to _me_ , Brooks.  There are witnesses to that.”  Her lips curved in a smile.  “Both times.”

“And yet.”  Brooks gestured with one hand, indicating the situation before her.

If someone who actually cared had made the comment, Rose might have offered up a shrug of a reply, but since it was Brooks, she knew better than to make any sort of movement.  Nothing she did would make the other woman believe her actions were honest or compassionate (regardless whether they were or not), and such a simple action might also disturb the resting body of the patient curled up against her.  Instead, there was silence, other than the noise of the television blaring from the adjacent room.

Brooks moved to the other end of the couch but didn’t sit, likely avoiding the springs as she leaned against the other arm instead, still facing the two of them.  “You have group therapy soon.”

“We _both_ have group therapy soon.”  Rose couldn’t help but offer the correction as Luisa’s brow furrowed and she made a whimper of displeasure, head burrowing into the flesh of her neck.  One corner of Rose’s lips lifted in amusement.  “She doesn’t sound like she would particularly _enjoy_ that.”

“It doesn’t matter if she would enjoy it or not.  It’s _scheduled_.”

“And it’s her first day.  She’s exhausted.  Have a heart, Brooks.”  Rose’s eyes finally lifted from the woman in her arms to meet the eyes of the nurse leaning on the couch across from her.  “You, at least, should have one.”

“It isn’t _your_ first day, Clara—“

“Rose.”

“— _Clara_.  _You_ still need to be at group.”

“You want to move her?”  Rose made a tsking sound.  “Your new child is psychotic.  She’s struggling with a grip on reality.”  Her eyes met Brooks’s dark ones, her smile fading, and her voice smooth and gentle.  “You want to move her while she sleeps to another room, to a bed, and have her wake up somewhere completely unaware of how she got there or why she was moved?  You’re _cruel_ , Brooks.”

“ _She_ can stay on the couch.  _You_ need to move.”

Rose nodded, as though in understanding.  “You want to take away the person who helped ground her during a panic attack and have her wake up alone when she was absolutely certain there was another person there?  Again, _cruel_ , Brooks.  And unlike me, _you_ aren’t _cruel_.  You’re paid for that, right?”

Brooks’s eyes lifted to the television room, and Rose didn’t follow her gaze.  It was a gimmick.  She already knew who was in that room, and she didn’t much care.

“You can even leave one of your aides in here to watch and make sure I don’t do anything you don’t like.”

It’s a suggestion that Rose knew was already in the back of Brooks’s mind.  And honestly, if she _hadn’t_ suggested it, she knew that Brooks might have followed through on it.  But now that she had, it seemed absurd and controlling.  That was the point.

“No,” Brooks said with a shake of her head.  “I don’t like _this_ ,” she admitted, waving a hand towards the two of them, “but….”  She didn’t continue.  She didn’t need to.  Leaving an aide could just as easily cause a problem with the new girl; they just didn’t know it.  They were still learning how she fit in around here, how she might react to changes.  They had to be careful.

Rose knew _that_ , too.

“I’ll be back before group starts.  If she’s awake, the two of you join us.  If not—“

“We stay here.”  _And don’t have to deal with that fuckery_ , Rose chose not to continue, but it was clear from her tone what she thought of it.  Brooks knew.  _Everyone_ knew.  Rose hated group.  It was a waste of her time, not that she did much else with it here anyway.  But she was a disruptive influence.  It made things more fun for her.  They knew _that_ , too.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Rose couldn’t help but smile as Brooks moved off of the arm of the couch and left to check on the other inhabitants, pointedly moving towards the television room first to check on the vegetables and the other two who Rose was _certain_ had been watching the exchange.  It was a small win, yes, but it was a win nevertheless.

Good.  She _liked_ winning.

* * *

 

Luisa felt warm when she regained consciousness.  Not overbearingly hot, as she had been before, but comfortably warm.  Her eyes fluttered open, and the woman whose body she was curled up against jumped, her heartbeat speeding up for the briefest of seconds before calming once more.  In her sleep haze, Luisa forgot exactly where she was, only aware that she was pressed up against someone else and that, even more important, whoever this woman was she appeared to be _frightfully_ ticklish.  She hummed pleasantly to herself before slowly brushing her lashes against the skin of the woman’s neck, much more intentionally than she had before.  As the woman squirmed at their feather soft touch, Luisa’s fingers traced underneath her shirt, tickling along the skin of her hips, up the curve of her torso.

The woman continued to try to squirm away from her before finally murmuring, “Oh, _two_ can play at _that_ game.”

Luisa couldn’t quite place the woman’s voice before opposing fingers found their way to the skin of _her_ hips, making her jump in surprise at how cold they felt, their touch much rougher than her gentle tickling had been, the woman’s style more of a poking and prodding than her careful sweep.  “Hey!  _Hey!_ ”  Luisa laughed, pulling away as she whapped one hand against—

_Rose._

She stopped _immediately_ as the scene that was Belle Reve’s common area appeared around her.  It was empty, sterile other than the couch – the stench of which she could smell much more prominently now that her nose was no longer buried in the lavender and strawberry scent of Rose’s skin.  Her head throbbed once, harshly, before returning to a softer hum, a reminder of her sudden cold turkey cut off of caffeine (and liquor, although she hadn’t mentioned that one to anyone), and she winced, drawing away from the other resident with one hand held against her forehead.  Unfortunately, in moving back, she leaned too far into the couch spring minefield, getting her ankle stung so hard that she unconsciously moved back into the other woman’s waiting arms.

Luisa groaned, her ankle now throbbing in time with her head.

“Did you have a good nap?” Rose asked, unable to keep her amusement out of her tone, which, in Luisa’s mind, was totally unfair.

“Good nap,” Luisa repeated in affirmation, “but _horribly rude_ awakening.”  She groaned again, moving out of Rose’s arms to lean against the back of the couch instead of back against the other woman, rubbing her forehead between her fingers as if that would actually help with her headache in the slightest.  “How do you _sit_ here?”

“I know where to sit,” Rose said with a smug grin, shifting back against the arm of the couch, head tilting to one side so that her gaze remained on Luisa, “and _I_ don’t start tickle fights in my sleep.”

Luisa started to make a retort of her own, but as soon as she saw the mischief hiding within Rose’s bright blue eyes, she decided against it and just stuck her tongue out instead.

“Oh, how _very_ mature of you, Dr. Alver.”

“If you think _I’m_ mature, you must not know me very well, and _how_ ,” she continued without taking a pause for a breath, “do you know _anything_ about…about _that_?”  She hadn’t said anything.  She hadn’t _wanted_ to say anything.  And she’s _not_ a doctor.  Not yet.  Maybe not ever.  “Did I say something in my sleep?”

“I have my ways.”  Rose’s grin turned smug again.  “Besides, it’s only been twenty-four hours.  I’ve got _plenty_ of time to learn about the rest of you.”  Her gaze wandered down Luisa’s form, moving slowly down and back up, and she felt completely exposed, even wrapped in her sweater, white shirt, and jeans.  “You did say you were _good_ , after all.”

“Oh, babe, you _know_ I’m good.”  The words were out of her lips before she even thought about it, letting her own eyes wander the same way Rose’s had as she scooted a little closer.  Then she remembered where they were.  Again.  And she scooted back, shaking her throbbing head with one hand out.  “But they, uh, they probably won’t let us do anything like that here, and I don’t know why you’re acting this way, and yes, honestly, if we were _anywhere_ else, this would be _great_ , really great, you have _no idea_ how great, but I can’t, we can’t, this _really_ isn’t the place for—“

Rose reached over and placed a finger over Luisa’s lips, and she stopped, watching as her lips pulled tight in what Luisa was slowly coming to realize was her way of laughing without actually making a sound.  Rose’s hand moved to cup her cheek again then brushed back slowly through her hair.  “You’re right.”  Her eyes flicked up, meeting Luisa’s again.  “They’re not much into that sort of _fraternization_ around here.”

Luisa let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding as Rose moved her finger from her lips.  “So this is just…for fun.  You’re fucking with me.”  She felt disappointed, which was confusing because….  She didn’t know how to put words to it.  She _liked_ feeling wanted, and she liked flirting.  But she liked flirting when there was the possibility of an end goal rather than just aimless flirting, and this was just for fun, well, it _was_ fun, and it was a good distraction, but—

“We won’t be in here forever, Luisa.  They _do_ let us out eventually.”

“You’ve been here long enough to have at least three different names, so I’m not sure I believe that coming from _you_.”

Rose shrugged, and her fingers traced down Luisa’s neck, brushing back her sweater ever so gently to expose the curve of her collarbone before leaning back against the arm of the couch.  “I’ll run out of insurance eventually or someone will want me out or I’ll run away so far they can’t find me and the police won’t bring me back and _I’ll_ be free, too.  One day.”

“Maybe.”  Luisa paused, running Rose’s words through her head again, parsing through them, then she froze.  “Wait, what do you mean _run away_?  What do you mean _the police_?  You break out?”

But Rose didn’t say anything, instead just offering a gentle sort of smile.  “Ask me again at dinner.”  She slowly spread her long legs and smoothly moved off of the couch, propping herself up with one hand.  “I think you should take some time for yourself.  Breathe a little bit.  Meet some of the vegetables.  They like it when _not normal_ people watch television with them.”

“They _also_ probably don’t like being called vegetables.”

“Pot _ay_ to pot _ah_ to.”

But it didn’t sound like that to Luisa.  “ _I_ wouldn’t like being called a vegetable.  If _I_ were one of them.”  She didn’t’ say it, but her mind continued for her, _If I’m not one of them already and am just fooling myself into believing otherwise._

The thought must have shown on her face, some flicker of fear through the whites of her eyes, because Rose’s hand was back on her cheek, thumb brushing along the bone, much more gentle.  “Stay in the moment, Luisa.”

“Your hand on my cheek.”

“My hand on your cheek.”

Luisa nodded once as Rose moved her hand away again.  “I think I can do that.”  Her brow furrowed.  “You can go do…whatever it is you need to do.”  She waited for Rose to say that she didn’t need to do anything, but the words didn’t come.  “I’ll be fine.”  Another hopeful wait, but nothing.  “I’ll find someone else to help me if I need—“  She glanced around the room, which was still empty.  “Where _is_ everyone?”

“Group therapy.  I convinced Brooks not to wake you up.  Thought you needed your rest.”  Rose paused, and her eyes wandered away before returning to Luisa.  “And _I_ think you need to take some time for yourself.  Whatever you talked about with Dr. Bloom – it was important, wasn’t it?”

Luisa nodded again, taking a deep breath.  “It was, but it’s….  I don’t want to think about it right now.”

“Better to think about it _now_ on your own while the sun’s still up than in the dark when your mind starts playing more tricks on you.”  Rose brushed her fingers through Luisa’s hair again.  “You can tell me what you figure out at dinner.”

“Dinner.  Right.  I didn’t nap through that?”

“They wouldn’t let you nap through that.  Three square meals are _very_ important here.”

“Of course.”  Luisa pinched the bridge of her nose.  She waved one hand in front of her.  “Just…go.  I’ll figure something out.”  She grinned to herself.  “With my IQ and med school, I should be able to do _that_ , at least.”

“I’ll see you at dinner.”

Luisa just nodded again as Rose walked off, trying to keep herself from focusing on her.  She fidgeted with her sweater again, and as soon as Rose was out of sight, she pushed herself off of the couch.  She couldn’t succeed at the same effortless motion the other woman did, and the couch bit her again for trying and failing.  A groan escaped her lips as she started to hobble back to her room on her still sore ankle.  She _had_ to get some sort of guide map for that thing before trying to sit down on it again.  The springs just weren’t worth it.

Not even if she was sitting with Rose.  The argument could be made, but it would _fail_ drastically.

* * *

 

When she’d first entered her room, Luisa had taken in its general appearance: beds, hastily made, with stained white sheets and gray floral comforters (pink flowers, but not roses, more like chrysanthemums, which were also not her favorite flowers, not that she’d ever been given either, with the occasional blue one every now and again – and she wondered, briefly, how many inhabitants at Belle Reve had spent their free time counting the flowers, counting the pink ones first and then the blue ones, or perhaps the other way around, and then making a statistic about the numbers of them in comparison with each other, and if anyone else saw the flowers crumple and drop petals or if that was just her); the papers covered in plastic and nailed into the wall (schedules, escape routes, other various necessities that every patient would need); the cement brick walls painted white so they didn’t feel as much like a prison (and after the little amount of time here, it _didn’t_ seem like prison as much as she’d initially thought it might).  But she’d ignored other parts of the room: the dressers like filing cabinets with filed down corners, one next to each bed; the wall area next to Betty’s bed that was covered with pictures of what might once have been friends and family but now just looked like a clattered combination of old cartoon cels and various autographs; the blank wall next to Luisa’s bed that was covered with _nothing_ because she hadn’t been here near long enough to cover it with _anything_ yet (but there were scraps of old papers left behind, pasted against the cement walls and near impossible to remove without more effort than any intern or nurse wanted to use when that time _could_ be used to help their patients); the thick bars on the windows and the shadows they cast across the already filtered light (even trapped inside their barriers, standing in the light, she could see the bars across her skin, as though to hold her insanity inside her).

And now, where there had been nothing before, two silver suitcases each marked with a paper with her name scribbled on it in the doctor’s handwriting that so many people couldn’t read – _but she could_ – and the little sky blue ribbons she’d tied onto their handles so she could better identify them whenever she needed to fly and the pink and blue carnations painted onto the silver so that her suitcases didn’t seem so _stark_ and _dry_ and _impersonal_.  The interns must have finally finished going through her things while she was with Dr. Bloom, or perhaps while she was with Rose, napping on the couch and struggling to keep her mind firmly rooted in the real world and not spinning into unreality.  Even _that_ thought tried to start her off again, but she stepped forward, kneeling by her suitcases, and brushed her hand against the plastic, taking note of how cool and _hard_ it was.

Real.

Present.

Here.

Luisa was certain that somewhere they had kept the third suitcase back.  She hadn’t needed it, just like she hadn’t needed everything she brought with her.  But it was simpler that way, for organizing, she thought.  The two that she could keep that they could fill with everything she _could_ keep, and the third that she couldn’t with all that she couldn’t.  Maybe she would ask Nurse Brooks what happened with those later, or the thin blonde nurse who had driven her to Dr. Bloom’s house for her appointment, the one whose name she’d learned was Jennifer, who was, in fact, nothing like the airy Cotton Belles at all.  Surely one of them would know what happened with all of her other things.

She didn’t expect anything other than clothes to be left in her suitcases, and unpacking them proved that to primarily be the case.  But at the very bottom of the second suitcase, Luisa was surprised to find the little cardboard box she’d filled with mementos – pictures, mostly, of her family (her father, her brother, _her mother_ ) and some of drinking parties with friends in college, along with one or two which she’d once been so certain were of her and Carla but now was not so sure.  She thought when packing them that maybe, when the hallucinations faded, the image of Carla would as well, but maybe…maybe that wasn’t as true as she once thought it would be.

It was sitting with one of the pictures in her hand – a black and white picture from the old Kodak instant cameras, where the picture would come out and she’d have to wait a few minutes, shaking it back and forth while the film developed and left that slightly fuzzy image of her and the other woman on it – that she felt a hand on her shoulder.  Her head turned, hoping to see Betty, but her eyes focused on the freckles of the hand with the stubby fingers and while she _wanted_ that hand to belong to Rose, equally freckled, she knew without a doubt that it didn’t.

These fingers were not near long enough.

She looked up, and the face staring back down at her was the same as the one in the picture.

“Luisa.”  Carla’s voice was soft.  It was _always_ soft, except when it wasn’t.  “Are you doing okay?”

She looked away from the woman she knew was a hallucination and replaced the picture at the top of the cardboard box, debating the best place to hide the box before stuffing it in the last of her drawers, behind the soft, comfortable pants she’d brought to wear.  (They’d let her keep the dresses, too, but without a closet or hangers, they would be wrinkled with the folds necessary to put them in the drawer in which she kept them.  Besides, what did she need to dress up for?  Nothing.  No one.  ~~( _Rose_ , her mind tried to tell her, but she tried to block that out.)~~)  “You don’t know?”

“No.”

Luisa shut the bottom drawer and leaned forward, brushing her hands on her knees before stuffing the empty suitcases one inside the other, zipping them closed, and pushing them in the small space under her bed where they just barely fit.

“We haven’t….  You’ve been busy, and then you were with that other girl, the one with the red hair? and I didn’t want to interrupt.  You looked _exhausted_.”

Luisa didn’t want to turn around.  She _really_ didn’t want to turn around.  She’d spent most of her day away from her hallucination.  Carla hadn’t interfered with her at breakfast, and she’d barely been around in the car on the way to Dr. Bloom’s house.  She’d _been_ there, but she’d sat with her hands clasped together in her lap, eyes focused on them, tapping her fingers against each other, and Luisa’d known she hadn’t known what to say and she hadn’t prompted her because she hadn’t wanted to talk to her.  She hadn’t then, and she didn’t now.

But ignoring Carla had never made her leave before.  If anything, that was one of the many things she had loved about their relationship – that even when she didn’t want to say anything, Carla would stay and just _be there_.  But maybe that was just wish fulfillment on her end.  Maybe her mind had simply crafted a human being who was everything she wanted her to be.

But, then, why would she stay now?  That implied she had much more control over her hallucination than she did, a type of control that she obviously did _not_ have.

Luisa wrapped her forest green sweater a little closer about her then turned, head lowered, to face the other woman.

Carla hadn’t changed at all in the past twenty-four hours, much to Luisa’s dismay.  Well, her outfit had changed.  Like a normal person’s would have.  But it hadn’t changed since Luisa had left her at Dr. Bloom’s – the same navy blue blouse with the frills around the collar, the same denim jeans, the same bright red Converse that she’d worn what seemed like every day for the past three years, even if they didn’t match the rest of her outfit, so faded and worn out that holes had begun to rip at the seams along the soles, but Carla had always said that made them more _comfortable_ , and Luisa had threatened that if she wore them to their wedding she was going to kick her out, that would be it, no more relationship, end, _done_.  Their laces weren’t even done up all the way, and she’d tried to tuck the end of her skinny jeans into them, and _how_ could Carla think that looked good and _how_ could _she_ have _imagined_ someone _like this_?

How could this be a hallucination?

How could she so clearly be seeing this woman with the frizzy auburn hair and the bright blue eyes, a shade darker than Rose’s and so much warmer; how could she _smell_ her, the same scent of chocolate chip cookies just out of the oven on Christmas morning cut into the shape of angels and Christmas trees and there was a sprig of cinnamon on them and the scent was so strong she could almost taste the chocolate melting on her tongue; how could she remember the exact location of every freckle dotting her bare back like a giant scab and the images she’d found in the clusters between her eyes when they were thirteen and she’d taken a permanent marker to her sleeping best friend’s face and connected the dots like she’d wanted to do when they were six but she’d never had the courage; _how_ could she _not_ exist?

How could she have traveled to Dr. Bloom’s house in the big white Belle Reve van with her while Nurse Jennifer drove and yet not returned with them and somehow have appeared here at this exact moment, speaking of watching her conversation with Rose when _she hadn’t been there_?  (Or had she, really, been sitting on the other end of the couch, wincing in pain because no one cared enough to show _her_ the right place to sit?)

“Her name is Rose.”

“That other woman – Jessica? – she calls her _Clara_.  And the girl with the book called her _Denise_.”

“Alice.”

Carla paused, considering, then shook her head.  “No.  That wasn’t one of her names.  I’m pretty sure that was _not_ one of her names.”

“The blonde girl with the book.”

“What about her?”

“ _Her_ name is Alice.”

“And the girl you like—“

“—I don’t _like_ her—“

“Yes, you do, I can tell, I _know_ what you look like when you _like_ someone, Lu, I’ve known you for—“

“You _haven’t known me at all_ , Carla, because you _don’t exist_.”

Luisa’s hands tightened on the edges of her sweater as she moved to wrap her arms around herself, if only to give her something more firm to hold onto.  She sat on one end of her bed then thought better of it, scooting back against the headboard, kicking her shoes off, and crossing her legs underneath her.  (They hadn’t let her keep her sneakers, as comfortable as they were, because she couldn’t have the shoe strings.  Another point against Carla, who still had shoes with strings.)

Carla’s face had grown white, lips pressed tight together, teeth digging into her lower lip so tight they would leave marks (and Luisa knew, from kissing her, that there was a callous on her lip from the habit, knew just how hard _she_ had to bite for the other woman to feel the slightest tingle at all).  Her hands raked through her frizzy auburn hair, trying, trying, _trying_ to give herself something concrete to hold onto, and eventually they found each other again, wringing together.  “I don’t know why you keep saying that, Lu.  I’m obviously right here.”

Luisa closed her eyes and shook her head, rolling her lips between her teeth.  “No, you’re not.”

“But you can feel me, too, can’t you?”  Carla stepped forward, but she didn’t hold her hand out this time, didn’t reach out to touch Luisa’s shoulder.  “The other girl – Rose – she touched you and you focused and you could feel her, but you can feel me, too, I _know_ you can.”

Then Carla stepped forward, sitting on the end of the bed, leaning across it, and Luisa could feel the bed _shift_ soundlessly with her weight, the way the mattress just bent.

“Just _talk_ to me, Lu.”

“I don’t want to, Carla.  I want to be _normal_.”

“No one’s _normal_ , Lu.  You know that better than anyone.”  Carla pulled her legs up under her, shifting a bit on the mattress, and once again, there was no sound.  “No offense, but some of those friends of yours you ran around with in college, and that _Allison_ girl in middle school.  I know you liked her, but she was just weird.”

“You only say that because _she_ was an athlete and _you_ couldn’t run a mile if a serial killer were after you.”

“Look, I have made my peace with that.  I can be the one who dies first.  That is my role in life.  I get that.”  Carla shook her head, curls shaking about her face, and then she grinned.  “But Lu.  Seriously.  Why would you _want_ to be normal?  That’s boring.  _You_ know what the world thinks is normal for a cute girl like you.”

And then, together, the both of them, in unison: “ _Husband, babies, homemaker._ ”

“But that’s not everyone’s dream, is it?  And aren’t we fighting for a _new_ definition of normal?”

“I don’t think seeing people who aren’t there is a good new definition of _normal_ , Carla.”

“But you _love_ me, don’t you?”  Carla opened her mouth as though to continue, then thought better of it, biting her lower lip again, face pinching together in pain.  “You used to, anyway.”

“I still do,” Luisa admitted, hesitant, “but I can’t stay in love with someone who isn’t there.  What if we had kids?  They wouldn’t be able to see you either.  They’d just see me, talking into empty space.  That wouldn’t be good for anyone.”

“They’d probably keep you from adopting if you mentioned you were married to me but I couldn’t ever show up and then they did that research stuff they do to make sure that you’re sane, and then—“

“I’m not crazy, Carla.”

“I didn’t say crazy, when did I say crazy, _I did **not** say crazy_ , I know better than that, Lu!”

Carla didn’t snap.  Carla _never_ snapped.  It was a welcome change of pace from her father, who was always disappointed in either herself or her brother, who constantly used Luisa as a standard that Rafael could never measure up to, which only crippled her further because she knew that she could never live up to how he saw her.  She wasn’t what he expected her to be or what he believed her to be.  She _couldn’t_ be.  And when she failed to live up to what he believed she was capable of, there was that silence, that _look_ , and the working of his jaw as he debated saying something but chose against it.  She _wanted_ him to say something, _anything_ , but she was her mother’s daughter and he walked on eggshells where she stood.

But he _snapped_ at Rafael near constantly, the echo of that booming voice detailing every single way her brother failed him, often punctuated by Rafael’s escape to his room and the loud _thump_ of fists buried into pillows, mattresses, everything but the walls he would all too easily break.  It felt like her childhood, like coming home and hearing the last remnants of her father’s arguments with her mother reverberating down the hall, and she would break into the liquor cabinet and steal a bottle of vodka and rock herself to sleep, making sure to wake up early enough to replace the bottle before her father noticed it was missing.

When he did, he blamed Rafael.

Rafael found Luisa once, putting the bottle back, and his dark eyes flashed darker, but he never said anything about it to their father.  She’d been glad for college then, glad to escape somewhere her methods of coping could not get her brother into more trouble than he already was.

Carla did not roar with the booming voice of her father, and she did not keep secrets with the silent yet understanding eyes of her brother.  She squeaked like a mouse with the weight of her words and she drew into herself because she feared the aftermath of an altercation and she reached forward to grab Luisa’s hand so that she knew that whatever anger she’d caused was not permanent and did not break her love of her but was only the momentary complication of misunderstanding, that whatever was wrong could be fixed if they worked on it together.  Her face flushed a bright red as she took Luisa’s hand now, rubbing her thumb along its back.

“You’re not crazy.  You’re not your mother.”

“I know.”  Luisa shifted on the mattress and its springs squeaked as she did so.  She did not remove her hand from the grip of Carla’s own, one that felt so warm and familiar and comforting.  “But you aren’t real.  Carla, you’re _not real_.”  Her voice ached.  “And as much as I might want it, I can’t just _make_ you _real_.  I can’t make other people see you.”

“If you need me, does it really matter if I’m real to other people or not?”

Luisa opened her mouth to reply then just as quickly shut it again, unsure of what to say.  That _was_ the question, wasn’t it?  Dr. Bloom had mentioned a path where she _could_ keep Carla, provided she understood that she wasn’t real, and as much as she wanted to lie to her and say that she could do away with the woman sitting beside her, she wasn’t sure that she could, and, even _if_ she could, she wasn’t sure that she _wanted_ to.  “I—“

Carla squeezed her hand once with a sad sort of smile on her face, one that Luisa knew well from their years together.  It wasn’t pitying.  It was—

The door slammed open with a louder jolt than normal, and Luisa jumped, and Carla jumped with her.

“What did you want me to do, argue with her?  I couldn’t very well—“

Jessica, talking adamantly, followed Betty into their room, and Betty curled up on her bed, tucking her legs underneath her, with a calm yet stoic face.  Her mouth was closed.  _Finally._

Jessica glanced around the room, and her eyes focused on Luisa, flicking to the space Luisa _knew_ she would only see as empty in front of her, and then back to Luisa herself.  She breathed a sigh of relief.  “Good.  You’re alone.  I was worried that you would have brought Clara in here with you.”

The word _alone_ stuck in the back of Luisa’s skull, and when she turned to face Carla, there was no one there but the welcome squeeze of affirmation that someone, somewhere, was.  She pulled her hand back and wrapped her arms around herself again, tightening her fingers in little fingers on the tread of her forest green sweater.  “Rose, you mean?”

And Jessica took a deep breath, as though steadying herself, and let it out, slowly.  “If that is the name you wish to call her, then yes.”

“That’s the name _she_ wants to be called.”

“Clara – _Rose_ – wants to be called by a _lot_ of different names.”

 _Didn’t you know?_ Jessica didn’t say.  _She likes to fuck with people.  She’ll fuck with you, too, if you let her._

But Jessica’s lips were not moving and the words, although in the familiar cadence of her voice, remained unsaid.  Luisa heard them clear as mud all the same.

“She’ll stick with this one.”

“Oh?”  Jessica crossed one arm just under her breasts, letting her fingers tap along her arm where the edge of one long purple glove would end, if she were wearing one.  _Mrs. Rabbit_ , Rose had called her, and for an instant, Luisa called up the image of the cartoon woman in the sparkling red dress with the hooded eyes, and she could almost see it, almost hear it in the tone of her voice as she asked, “How can you be so sure of that, Ms. Alver?”

She wasn’t.  Truth be told, she _wasn’t_ sure.  Luisa wanted it to be true, wanted to believe that her request was one that Rose would accept, but if she was honest with herself (and, again, she wasn’t honest with herself very often when it came to harsher truths), there was nothing to suggest that this would be the case.  Rose had been nice to her so far, but that wasn’t an indication of days to come.  Rose was right – she _had_ only known her for twenty-four hours _at most_ , and that didn’t take into consideration whatever her mental illness was, something that Luisa still didn’t know, despite asking.

But right now, Luisa hated the self-assured manner that she heard in Jessica’s voice, hated not that she was questioning her (because she needed to be questioned, considering that Jessica probably _did_ know Rose much better than Luisa did) but that she seemed to be _patronizing_ her.  But she crossed her arms and she held her head high and said, “I don’t.”  Didn’t even flinch when she corrected herself.  “I’m _not_.  But maybe it’s part of her disorder—“

 _It’s not._   Rose’s words echoed, a reminder of her lie.

“—and if it is, then we should be willing to put up with it the same way that we put up with each other’s.  I see someone and talk to her even though she’s not there, and you put up with that.  What does it matter what _name_ Rose wants to use?”

_She’s just fucking with you._

“We’re here to get better, not get worked up over someone else’s name.”

_She’s not here to get better; she’s been here a long time; she’s not getting better; **you’re not getting better.**_

“Luisa, I think you’re being a little too trusting of someone you only just met.”

“I only just met you, too.”  It was a challenge, even if she didn’t necessarily mean it to be.  “How do I know that I should trust _you_ over _her_?”

“You don’t.”

“That’s right.  I don’t.”

Then a hand patted the edge of her bed, and Luisa jumped again with surprise.  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again, gazing at Betty, who she’d forgotten was there at all.  Betty’s dark eyes were looking at her intently, unblinking, lips pursed together, working as though to say something even though no sound came from her mouth.

“You’re right, Betty,” Luisa said, finally.  “Maybe it’s better not to argue.”

“That’s not what she said.”

“She didn’t _say_ anything.”  Luisa smiled and took Betty’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze and feeling an answering one in return.  “She didn’t _have_ to.  I understood you right, didn’t I, Betty?”

Betty blinked once, a smile lighting her face, then she nodded rapidly.  She seemed so much more animated than she had been before, and she turned to Jessica, making a shooing motion with her other hand.  _Go somewhere else for a little bit, Jess.  I can take care of this._

Jessica’s jaw set, eyes flicking from Betty to Luisa and back again, and she finally let out a sigh.  “You don’t have to trust me, Luisa.  I don’t expect it.”  She paused, lips pressed together, then turned to leave.  But she stopped with one hand resting on the doorframe.  “I don’t expect _anything_ of you, and you shouldn’t expect anything of _her_ either.”

The door clicked shut behind her as she left the room, but not before Luisa could stick her tongue out at her departing form.  Ink and paint vs. carved from marble.  If it was a question of _attraction_ , Rose won every time.  Not. that it _was_ a question. of attraction.  In fact, it _shouldn’t_ be.  Or _have been_.  Luisa knew _that_ , too.  The most beautiful women were often the ones who had been the most cruel to her during high school, and she’d won their continuous hatred for bringing vodka to school and sharing it with her friends but not in any way where they could get her caught by the teachers and certainly not in any way where _they_ could share the drink with her.  (And, actually, she often went out of her way to get _them_ caught instead.  Asshole plastics.)

“Here, Betty, do you want to sit with me?”

Betty nodded once and got off of her bed, moving over to the edge of Luisa’s own where Carla had been sitting only moments before.  Luisa felt a strange pang in the middle of her chest at the acknowledgement, almost imagining Carla telling her that she was _still there if she needed her_ , but that feeling quickly dissipated as she focused on the woman now sitting across from her.

Luisa sighed and shook her head, then her eyes lifted as she smiled.  “Jessica _means_ well, doesn’t she?”

Betty blinked once.

“She really thinks Rose is a threat?”

This time Betty didn’t blink at all.  In fact, it looked like she was trying really hard to _not_ blink.

“She thinks Rose is a threat to _me_.”

Now Betty blinked and let out a sigh of relief.  She patted Luisa’s hand once, her lips pressed tight together.

“Do _you_ think Rose is a threat?”

Betty blinked once.

“To _me_?”

This time, much to Luisa’s surprise, Betty blinked twice.  There was a hesitation clear across her face before she blinked the second time, but she was very clear and very firm with both blinks.  Then she looked away, focusing on her filing cabinet-style dresser and her wall of pictures.  She heaved another sigh, shoulders drooping.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea.”

Betty turned back to her, eyes so wide that their whites stood out.  At least her mouth wasn’t still hanging open.

Luisa leaned forward, one corner of her lips pulling up in a smirk.  “The interns finally let me have my stuff.”  Her smile faded and she tilted her head to one side.  “Ok, so, they didn’t let me have _all_ my stuff, which I kind of expected given the whole _mental hospital_ vibe they’ve got going on.”

Betty blinked.

“You know, because we’re _in_ a—“

Betty’s eyes narrowed.

“—okay so it’s not that funny, I get it.”  Luisa grinned.  “ _But_ they let me keep some of my pictures and my box of mementos.  I think some of them had sharp edges, so I didn’t get to keep those, _but_ ,” and here she leaned forward again, eager, “if you want, I can show you some pictures of my family.  How about that?”

Betty blinked once, eagerly, then tried to keep her eyes open so that she didn’t blink again, and Luisa laughed once at her wide-eyed expression.  She jumped off of her bed and dug into her bottom drawer, pulling out her cardboard box, and reopened it.  She pulled the first picture off the top – the Kodak picture of her and Carla – and placed it to the side while she began to pull out more pictures, but Betty just tapped it, brows furrowed.

“Oh, that…that one probably looks weird to you, right?  Because it looks like it’s just me, _but_ ,” and Luisa didn’t stop to take in Betty’s face or her concern, “in that empty space right there,” she pointed, “that’s Carla.  Or, to me, that’s Carla.  She probably looks like empty space to you.  It’s a weird picture, so, don’t…don’t worry about it.”

Betty blinked twice while Luisa was speaking, then blinked twice again, but Luisa didn’t catch either, too caught up in trying to explain.  She turned the picture over then put it at the very bottom of the box, beneath everything else she was allowed to keep with her, but Betty grabbed her forest green sweater, tugging on her arm once.

“What?”  Luisa stopped, staring blankly at her roommate.  “What’s wrong?”

Betty tapped once where the picture had been on the bed, and Luisa shook her head again.  “I don’t know what you’re trying to say, Betty.  I don’t know what you—“

There came a sudden knock at the door, and after a moment’s struggle with the knob, Nurse Brooks poked her head in.  “Dinner, girls.  You wouldn’t want to be late.”

“Oh.”  Luisa turned to Betty with a half-smile, that awkward sort of thing she gave when she was confused and trying to figure something out.  “I guess that must’ve…that must’ve been what you wanted?  Right?”

Betty blinked her eyes twice but stood up from Luisa’s bed anyway, pulling at her own grey shirt.

“We need to go to dinner.”

Betty blinked once, then took Luisa’s hand again, pulling her off the bed.  It was incessant but _nice_.

“Fine, fine,” Luisa couldn’t help but laugh, “I’m coming.  Just…let me put these up first, okay?  And then I’ll meet you,” she said, taking her hand out of Betty’s.  Then she turned to Brooks.  “That _will_ be okay, right”?

“Of course.”  Brooks paused, holding the door open for Betty while she left their room.  “But if you aren’t there in the next five minutes, I _will_ be back for you.”

“Right.  Right, yeah, of course, that makes sense.  I’ll be there.  I wouldn’t want to miss _food_ , you know.”  Luisa grinned that same haphazard grin as Brooks backed out of the room, the door clicking shut behind her.  When she was gone, Luisa took the picture back from the bottom of the cardboard box, replacing it at the top of her mementos, then shut the box and replaced it back in the bottom drawer of her dresser.

She didn’t want to think she’d lost the picture or misplaced it.

She wasn’t ready to let go of Carla just yet.


	6. Chapter 6

When Luisa arrived in the cafeteria, albeit a few minutes later than the others, it was set up just as it had been for breakfast that morning and for lunch earlier in the day.  Other residents sat with the friends they had made over their time here or by themselves; the _vegetables_ , as Rose called them, were in a group to themselves in the far back; and Rose was still given a wide berth by the entire group, which Luisa still didn’t understand.  For everything she’d seen of the other woman so far, even if it was considerably less than the other patients, it seemed like Rose was reasonable.  She certainly hadn’t thrown anything.  It made no sense to give her such a vast amount of space.

While she waited in line for her food, Luisa glanced around the rest of the room, trying to pick up on the other residents she’d met and whose names she wanted to try and remember.  Betty and Jessica, sitting together near the middle of the room, mostly kept to themselves, and when Betty caught her gaze, she lifted her hand in a friendly wave.  Jessica began to turn around to face her, but Luisa let her glance move away, searching for the blonde she’d seen earlier – Alice, who referred to Rose as Denise, who used her little book to communicate.  Her eyes narrowed as she searched, until finally she caught sight of her sitting alone, twiddling one of the plastic forks between her thin fingers, carefully cutting her peas and carrots with a knife and making sure that each bite was firmly between her lips before closing them.  As Luisa watched, a pea fell from her plate, and Alice seemed to jump backwards, watching it with wide blue eyes.  Then she glanced up and met Luisa’s gaze, giving her a small smile.  Luisa’s eyes dropped, and when she looked back up, Alice had returned to her eating – careful, methodical, _precise_.

Once Luisa’d hustled through the rest of the line, the last resident going through (that _she_ knew of), and after she’d given Brooks a little wave of her own so that the head nurse didn’t think she was trying to skip dinner, Luisa made her way over to Rose’s table and set her tray down across from the other woman’s own, pulling her blue plastic school chair back and sitting in it.  Rose glanced up from her own tray and gave her a tight-lipped grin, brows raising.  “Feeling better?”

“Yes.  And no.  And yes?”  Luisa shook her head then tilted it to one side.  “I don’t know what constitutes _better_.  I still have a headache.  I still see Carla.  I’m _starving_ because I was in _college_ and snacked all the time and now there’s just _this_.”  She waved one hand over her tray, full to the brim, but still not the same as having something throughout the day.

“You can buy snacks.”

“I can _what_ now?”

Rose pointed out of the cafeteria.  “There’s a snack machine down the hall.”

Luisa settled into her seat with a frown, tapping her plastic fork against the equally plastic tray.  “You’d think someone would have mentioned that.”

“I just did.”

“Not _you_ ,” Luisa said, sticking her tongue out, before crossing her arms, “but, I mean, on the tour or something.  Someone should have pointed it out before _now_.”

“They gave you a tour?”

Luisa’s face fell and her gaze lifted as she considered.  “No.  They didn’t.  _Do_ they give tours?  They should give tours.  Introduce me to all the residents.  Jessica showed me around a little bit, but you’d think one of the nurses or interns would do that.  Show you the places you can and can’t go.  Do they normally do that?  Did I just miss it?”

This time, Rose didn’t say anything.  Instead, her fingers moved to tear off a piece of her sandwich and pop it into her mouth.  She sat back with a smile, then glanced down to Luisa’s tray, taking her time before glancing back up to her eyes.

“You want me to tear apart my food?  Eat with my hands?”

Rose still didn’t say anything.  She swallowed, picking up one of her peas between her forefinger and thumb.

“Are you just going to sit there and not talk to me again?”

“Would it bother you if I did?”  Rose didn’t look up, popping the new pea between her lips.

“The entire point of sitting with someone,” Luisa began, pointing her fork at Rose, “is to talk with them while you eat.  But not _while_ you eat.  In-between bites.  Because the whole _talking with your mouth full_ thing is gross.  Or impolite.  Or _something_.”  And she didn’t stop for a breath before continuing, “And please don’t take that as your cue to start doing that because as _not normal_ as that might be, I’ll be annoyed, and I like sitting with you, and yes, I _could_ sit with someone else, but you’re sitting by yourself, and that’s got to be lonely, and—“

“Are you only sitting with me because you think I’m lonely?”

“No!”  Luisa’s eyes widened at once, and she leaned forward, placing one of her hands on top of Rose’s.  She ignored the grit of the smashed peas on the other woman’s fingers as she rubbed theirs together.  “No, I’m sitting with you because I _like_ you.”  She didn’t elaborate, hoped that Rose didn’t expect her to, and for once in her life, tried to keep her rambling thoughts to herself.

This didn’t last.

“I mean, I don’t _like_ you like you.  Or I might.  I don’t know.  I haven’t decided yet, if that’s even something you can just _decide_ on.  You’re just _extremely_ attractive and we’re in a mental hospital and—“

Rose squeezed her hand gently, and Luisa let her voice fade out, lips pressed together very firmly to keep herself from spitting out more words.  It was hard, but she focused on Rose’s hand in hers, on how smooth her skin felt.  Then she took a deep breath.  “I sit with you because I like sitting with you.”

“I like sitting with you, too,” Rose said, accompanied with her amused little grin.  Her hand turned beneath Luisa’s, interlocking their fingers for a final squeeze before taking her hand back.  Her eyes moved down to her own tray, head tilted to one side.  “But I also don’t mind sitting alone.”

“Oh.”  Luisa took her hand back, placing it in her lap, eyes staring at the peas and carrots on her tray.  “But you asked me to sit with you.  At dinner.  I mean, you asked me to sit with you at dinner when we were at breakfast.  You _did_ do that.  So you must be okay with my sitting here now.  With you.”  Her hand didn’t stay in her lap long, instead moving to her tray, rolling one of the peas between her fingers, mimicking Rose’s actions and rolling it around in her hand.  “This is relaxing.”

“I know.”

“Is that why you do it?  To relax?”

“No.”  Rose popped another pea between her perfect lips.

“You’re an _enigma_ , you know that?  It’s _infuriating_.”  Luisa sighed, slumping back into her little plastic blue chair.  “I can’t figure you out.”

Rose’s eyebrows lifted and she nodded once.

“You don’t have anything to say to that?”

Rose shrugged, taking a deep breath.  Then she leaned forward, placing one elbow on the table and resting her head in a hand unblemished with pea grit or sandwich jam.  “You’re in a mental hospital, Luisa.  I don’t think it’s your job to figure me out.”  Her free hand took her unused plastic fork and pointed it in Luisa’s direction.  “You’re supposed to be figuring _you_ out.”  The fork jabbed into what remained of her sandwich, standing abruptly upright.  “Don’t feel bad about it.  If _they_ haven’t figured me out by now, you won’t.”

Luisa just shook her head.  “Everyone wants to be understood.”

“No, they don’t.”

Her answer was abrupt, quick, as though Rose had practiced it a million times, or as though Luisa had unintentionally tripped something deep within her.  “You don’t want to be understood?”

Rose ran a finger along the edge of her tray, and when she finally looked back up at Luisa, her bright blue eyes had grown stony and gray, eclipsed with storm clouds.  “I’m stuck in a mental hospital, Luisa.  What does it matter what I _want_?”

“I—“  Luisa bit back her words.  Her first instinct was to reach across the table, to touch Rose again, despite the chilly exterior she’d put up.  Instead, she shook her head, shifted her body in her seat as though she were uncomfortable, when she really wasn’t.  “Alana – _Dr. Bloom_ – said I could keep Carla.  If I wanted.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know.”  Luisa smiled, and her eyes focused on her still mostly full tray of food.  “I haven’t really had enough time to think about it.  But it doesn’t particularly seem _sane_ , does it?  Walking around with a hallucination instead of spending time with real people?  Like having a living, breathing imaginary friend that no one else can see but me?”  A little laugh.  “Or a ghost, maybe.  I could tell people I’m haunted by the ghost of a girl I made up when I was six years old.”  She smiled again, but it didn’t reach her eyes.  “But that’s…not why I brought it up.”

This time, when Luisa looked up, she made sure to meet Rose’s eyes.  “Dr. Bloom gave me the option to do _what I want_ with my hallucination, so I think that means that, even in a mental hospital, what _you_ want matters.  Or not,” she continued, just as quickly, glossing over her words with more that were much less important, as though to distract from what possibly might aggravate her new friend.  “You’ve been here longer than I have, so maybe what you want doesn’t matter and Dr. Bloom is just lying to me and I _don’t_ really have a choice in the matter, or I _do_ but the answer is so obvious that everyone would just get rid of their hallucination that she offered me the option so I’d feel better about it when I decide to get rid of her but maybe I won’t and she’ll pull me in that direction anyway.  Or maybe you and I have such different cases that what _you_ want doesn’t matter when what _I_ want does.  Or maybe you’re just being—“

“Luisa.”

“Hm?”  She hadn’t even noticed her gaze moving from Rose’s eyes to the hands on her tray, hadn’t realized her head had been tilting, hadn’t thought about her rambling on and on when she’d really been trying to make Rose feel better.  She noticed now.  “Oh.  I’m sorry.  I tend to overshare.  You can stop me any time.”  A pause, then, realizing.  “You’ve _already_ been stopping me, haven’t you?”

Rose gave a little snort, just this tiny huff of air from her nostrils, and shook her head.  “You’re cute.”

“Thank you, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Luisa’s brow furrowed as she scowled.  “Are you _avoiding_ my question?”

“Do I _need_ to answer the question?”

Luisa frowned.  “No.  I guess not.”  Then she perked up.  “You still didn’t tell me your diagnosis.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well?”

This time, when Rose picked her fork up from where it stood in her sandwich, she reached across and tapped the tip of Luisa’s nose with it, leaving a hint of strawberry jam behind.  “Maybe later.”

Luisa’s nose scrunched up, and she wiggled it, trying to get the unfamiliar sensation to disappear.  Then she rubbed at it with the back of her hand until the jam disappeared.  “Don’t do that.”

“What, this?”  Rose reached over, poking Luisa’s nose with her fork again.

“Yes, that!  Don’t do that!”

“Are you sure?”

This time, when Rose jabbed the fork over, Luisa grabbed it with one hand and used her own fork, twirling it between the fingers of her other hand, to poke the redhead in the nose instead.  She pulled on Rose’s plastic fork as the other woman bent backward, rubbing her nose with her free hand, and triumphantly stole it from her.  Then she turned it so that both forks were facing in Rose’s direction.  “Surrender now, or prepare to _fight_.”

Rose instinctively drew her plastic knife, holding it out like a sword against Luisa and her two forks, then paused.  “Isn’t that…that’s a _Pokémon_ reference, isn’t it?”

“What?  No.  I don’t watch shows like that.”  Luisa’s eyes shifted away, just enough for Rose to take advantage of it, jabbing her knife against one of the forks and twisting it through one of its tines so that it broke off and landed – _plop!_ – in Luisa’s chocolate pudding.  Immediately, Luisa looked down at her pudding, eyes widening.  “Hey!”

“You weren’t paying attention.”

“And _you_ were accusing me of watching a children’s show!”

“Am I right?”

“No.”

Rose jabbed her knife forward again, and this time Luisa paid enough attention to recover in time to deflect it.

“Okay, fine, _yes_.  My brother’s seven years younger than me, and I got used to spending my spare time watching cartoons.”  She held up one fork as though to make a point.  “He was _thirteen_ when they started, and I haven’t given up the habit of watching them.  Cartoons are really relaxing.”

“They’re _childish_.”

“Says the woman who keeps attacking me with plastic utensils!”  Luisa’s eyes widened again, face a picture of exasperation.

Now Rose slumped back in her seat, holding her hands up, palms outward, so that the plastic knife fell from her hands and clattered on the floor.  “I never said _I_ wasn’t being childish.  Only pointing out that _you_ were.”  Her eyes lifted to meet Luisa’s again, and for the briefest of moments, Luisa’s heart felt like it stopped.  “I _got_ the reference, didn’t I?”

“Oh.  I guess you did.”

Rose shook her head.  “Now eat your pudding.  It’s the only thing that’s actually tolerable on this whole tray.”

“You haven’t eaten _yours_ yet.”

“I saved the best for last.”

“And how,” Luisa started to ask as she fished the broken tines of her plastic fork out of the pudding, “do you plan on eating that one without a spoon?”

“I was hoping you would feed it to me.”

“You _what_?”  Luisa froze, her voice suddenly soft, whisper quiet.  She wasn’t sure she had heard it quite right.  Surely Rose wasn’t suggesting—

Rose reached over and placed her hand over the one holding Luisa’s spoon.  “I was hoping you would feed it to me.”  Her lips curved, one edge pulling upward in a smirk.  “Like I fed you the jam this morning, remember?”  She slowly turned Luisa’s hand in her own, opening it so she could trace her fingers along the lines of her palm.  “Unless you would prefer I use a spoon.”

“N-n-n-nooooooooooo.”  Luisa could feel the heat creeping up into her cheeks, and she knew she was blushing like a schoolgirl – an old cliché but one that fit nevertheless.  Not as bright red as she was certain Rose would, if she were to blush, although she…she _really_ shouldn’t be thinking about that.  “You just…you just…you won’t get as much.  Of the pudding, I mean, if we used a spoon, you’d get more than just—“

“This is better.”

“For you or for _me_?”

Rose shrugged again, leaning back in her chair, crossing her arms just under her breasts.  “If you don’t want—“

“N-n-n-n-nooooooooo, I _do_ , I definitely do, just, if the chocolate pudding is the _best_ part of the meal, I wouldn’t want to deprive you of—“

“Luisa.”

And she looked up and met Rose’s bright blue eyes and saw the twinkle of mischief in them and that calm _waiting_ and took a deep breath and stuck her forefinger into the chocolate pudding and held it out to Rose’s waiting grin.  “Open.”

“ _Firmer._ ”

“ **Open.** ”

Rose’s grin parted as her lips did, fading into the firm set of her jaw.

Luisa put her finger in Rose’s mouth, and the other woman closed her lips around it.

“Taste.”

Obedient, Rose’s tongue began to brush against Luisa’s finger, seeking out every bit of chocolate coating it.  More, maybe.  She didn’t stop when Luisa knew the chocolate was gone but continued, slow and gentle.

Luisa held her breath.

When Rose sat back in her seat, Luisa’s finger hovered, wet, in the air for a brief instant before she took it back.

“ _Swallow_.”

Rose grinned as she swallowed (and as Luisa choked down a swallow herself) then nodded towards the pudding.  “Your turn.”

Luisa dipped her finger back into the chocolate pudding then placed it between her lips, licking the desert off, not even realizing she had chosen to forego her own spoon.  Her lips pressed together.  “It tastes like strawberries.”

“Funny,” Rose said, taking out her plastic spoon and dipping it into the pudding.  “Mine tasted like cinnamon.”

* * *

 

Rose’s bare feet were cool against the tile as she entered her room, the door click shut silently behind her.  Unlike many of the other residents, she had a room of her own – not due to any particular excess of funds or insurance but simply because the nurses had learned that keeping her alone was far safer than giving her such unmitigated access to another resident’s mind.  This way she was prevented from whispering in their ears as they slept, exacerbating the illnesses they were trying so hard to overcome, without a nurse nearby to step in and stop her if things seemed to be growing dim.

They’d learned from the mess with Susanna, even if they couldn’t do much for the Jennis or Marissas of the world.

Her own bed was not covered with the floral print comforter that many of the other residents had.  Instead, hers was plain, stained gray, and spotted with other stains she hadn’t taken the time to name.  It was thin, threadbare, her mattress almost as bad with its springs as the piss-stained couch in the common area, not that she used it.  She made up her bed in the morning to fool the residents and the new interns, but the nurses and the regulars knew well enough – Rose slept on the floor.

She shivered once as she curled up on the cool tile, pulling the thin comforter from its place on her mattress and wrapping it around her bare, freckled shoulders.  Her curls rested lightly against her one pillow; she could still feel the hard floor beneath it as she let her breathing slow.

One breath in, hold it, one breath out.

Again.

It had taken weeks to be able to train herself to fall into a near comatose state of sleep confined within Belle Reve’s many walls, the time made longer first by the intermittent screaming of a resident who had been moved to the more severe wings, then by the introduction of her first – and only – roommate.  If she opened one of the drawers in the set that had once belonged to Susanna Barnett, there were still items left behind.  A shiny white jersey emblazoned with red; a boxy suit jacket; a hairbrush with horses etched into the back still holding onto one or two locks of her bright blonde hair.  The most important of these was a single picture, one that Rose had run her thumb over so many times that, even just from her use, it had faded, the corners curled up at their edges.

She couldn’t say what it was about the picture of the young blonde woman holding tight to the woman she guessed was her father with a bright smile on his face, her other hand helping a much younger boy – her brother, perhaps – hold up a huge fish (trout?  catfish?  Rose could not say), but something about it made her chest ache.  Brooks had yet to catch her looking at it, but one call had been close enough that Rose had shut it away entirely, choosing instead to bring it up in her mind and look at it that way, even though that caused it to fade even more than the oils from her hand had.

There was no mother in the picture.  Where had Susanna’s mother been?

Sometimes, while she calmed herself to sleep, Rose imagined the Barnett family – younger brother, holding onto his freshly caught fish; older sister, beaming with pride; father with the cockeyed fishing hat covered with fish hooks – and gave them a mother, the woman behind the camera, with golden waves of hair like her daughter’s, the bright smile of her son with all those white teeth, and a fishing rod in one hand, the scent of all those fish strong in the air.  Down the docks from them, a boat rested in the lake, rocking gently with the waves as the wind brushed against it, and farther away, storm clouds hung over the horizon.  By the time the storm approached, they would all be inside: mother, working on a side dish to go with the fish; father and son together, the older teaching the younger how to cook his new catch; and Susanna alone in the living room, all pine and wood and paneling, dark brown eyes watching the rain pitter-patter against the window pane.  She’d raise one hand, and on the other side of the window, another hand, mirroring her own, would raise, much paler and covered with freckles, and on either side of the glass, the two hands would just touch.

Then Rose would drift into unconsciousness as lightning struck the little boat left behind on the lake.


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Luisa was shuffled back to her therapist’s house.  She had barely enough time to change out of her brother’s old high school sweatshirt and her own pink booty shorts into something much warmer and more presentable before she was back in the white van, although this time with a different nurse.  This time, Carla did not join her in the van, so while the trip was just as silent, it didn’t feel near as tense.  In fact, it gave her time to wonder vaguely how she and the other residents did their laundry or if that was something the nurses would do for them, too.  Her eyes focused on the woods outside the house as they drove up, noting the snow heavy on the trees’ limbs even as it began to drip, melting, from them.

“Good morning!”  Alana was waiting for her as the van drove in, sitting on her front porch.  She accepted the pad from the new nurse and signed off on it before turning back to Luisa and gesturing inside.  “I’m sorry for calling you out here so early, but it was the only time I had open.”

“That’s fine.”  Luisa didn’t look up, instead focusing on the gravel still left in the driveway.  Her feet shuffled as she walked, idly kicking some of the pebbles away and watching to see how far they went.  If she caught up to them, she kicked them again, but more often than not she lost the look of the smaller rocks among the rest of them.  “Just as long as this isn’t our _permanent_ meeting time.  It’s a little too early for me to be _all here_.”  She tapped her forehead with one finger then sighed, her face falling.  “Maybe that’s not the _best_ description.”

“No, I get what you mean.”  Alana held the door open for her, and it clicked both shut then _locked_ behind her.  “How are your caffeine withdrawals?”

She hadn’t even noticed.  “Headache’s gone.  Still feel a little groggy.”

“Everyone’s groggy first thing in the morning, but,” and here Alana grinned, “I have something in mind for today, if you’re up for it.”

Luisa stifled a yawn, covering her mouth with the back of her right hand.  “Like what?”

Alana guided her into the kitchen.  “I thought we could back something while we talked.  Send you back with some sugar cookies to share with the group.”  She gestured to a pot being kept warm on the stove.  “I’ve got homemade hot chocolate to bribe you with.”

“We can’t just take mugs of hot chocolate and sit on the couch?” Luisa asked with another yawn.

“We could,” Alana admitted, “but I think this will be more fun.”  At this point, a real friend might have taken Luisa’s free hand and dragged her further into the kitchen, but despite her clear attempts to be seen as more friend than therapist, this was a boundary that Alana did not cross.  “If you don’t want to try your hand at baking, though….”

“It’s more that I’m _horrible_ at all of this cooking stuff.”  Luisa waved a hand over the countertop.  “I don’t want to burn your cookies or sprinkle them with salt instead of sugar.”

“That’s what you have _me_ for.”  Alana finally took Luisa’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.  “Just try it.”  Then she moved away, pulling out a pair of aprons from one of the kitchen’s many, many drawers as Luisa followed her.  She held them out for Luisa to look over.  “Which one do you want?”

One of them was a deep blue covered with patterns of waves with little dolphins and jellyfish peeking out beneath some of the lighter blue stitched waves.  The other was more of a forest green and instead of the fish wildlife, it was covered with squirrels and acorns.  Luisa tugged her bottom lip between her teeth.  “Do you have a third option?” she asked with an awkward grin.  “I love the squirrels, but the waves are….”  Her voice faded off, and she shook her head once, as though to clear it.  “Never mind.  I’ll take the green one?”

Alana’s eyes moved carefully across Luisa’s face, and Luisa could see the question poised on the tip of her tongue waiting to be asked.  She continued before her therapist had a chance to speak.  “I know, I’m from _Miami_ , the ocean should be _great_ , and it is!  I love the dolphins.  And the jellyfish.  And it’s cute.  But it makes me think of my mom and I’d really rather not think about her this early.  It’ll ruin my whole day.  She’ll be stuck there, and I’ll…compare.”

“Okay.”  Alana placed a hand on Luisa’s shoulder and squeezed once.  “No ocean apron.”  She pulled the drawer back open and stuffed the oceanic apron down near the bottom while simultaneously pulling out a third, entirely different apron – this one a bright, sunshiny yellow with the occasional cloud or bird stenciled into the pattern.  “This one okay?”

Luisa nodded.  “I’ll stick with the forest.”

Alana laughed.  “It’s a little cheery for first thing in the morning, isn’t it?”  She unfolded it and put it on, tying the strings behind her back as Luisa did the same.  “I’ve always been a morning person.  My parents hated it.  I would get up early in the morning and be downstairs running around the house with my toys while they were still trying to sleep. Sometimes they’d yell at me, _Lana!  Go back to sleep!  It’s too early!_ but most of the time they just gave up.”

“My dad wasn’t around enough to know when I was awake and when I was asleep,” Luisa offered as she finished tying her apron strings into a tight little knot.  “He wasn’t exactly _negligent_ ,” she explained, head moving back and forth in a _so-so_ gesture, “but he had to work a lot.  He’s more about the whole _providing_ aspect than the hands on _parenting_ aspect of being a father.  Protector, provider, all that stereotypical _man_ stuff, but without the whole gruff fierceness.  Well,” and here she paused, resting one elbow on the countertop, “he has _that_ , too, but with me he was mostly gentle.  He took a lot of it out on Raf.”

“Your brother?” Alana asked as she pulled out a huge container of flour.

“Younger.  Seven years younger.”  Luisa’s eyes widened at the appearance of the flour container.  “You bake _a lot_ , don’t you?”

“Bad habit.  And _everyone_ likes food.  You just have to find the _right_ food, and I’ve never met a person yet who’s said no to one of my cookies for anything other than allergy reasons.”

“Uh-huh.”  Luisa nodded once, firmly.  She stepped back and watched as Alana covered her island with a thin layer of flour.

“Tell me about your brother.”

“Well, he’s seven years younger, and he’s always thought our father was disappointed in him.  Which he _is_ , but I think Dad’s just disappointed in everyone.”

“Even you?”

“Especially me, although he doesn’t show it.”  Luisa sighed.  “I’ve got _an IQ of 152_ , so I should be doing something _intelligent_ with my life.  I think he probably would’ve preferred it if I went to law school, but medical serves him just fine.  He still has a genius daughter.  But paint me an artist or a penniless writer, and he would have done that whole, _You know, Luisa, I love you and I fully support you, but_ bit.”  She shrugged.  “He shows his love through his disappointment.  It’d be worse if he _didn’t_ care.  I don’t think Raf gets that, though.  He just gets mad because he doesn’t think he’ll ever be good enough.  But he _won’t_.  There’s not really a level for _good enough_ with our father.  Anything – and _anyone_ – can be better.”

“That sounds hard.”

“It’s not.  Not really.”  Luisa bites her bottom lip again.  “You get used to it after a while.”  Then she shook her head, moving over to the island.  “You need me to help with anything?”

“No, no, just let me get everything set up,” Alana said with a smile as she rummaged through cabinets and pulled out bowls and what Luisa guessed were ingredients. “Help yourself to some hot chocolate!  The mugs are right,” and here she stood on her tiptoes, tapping one of the cabinets with a nude-painted nail, “here.  You can take whichever one you want!”

Luisa moved behind her little therapist and opened the cabinet to reveal a wide assortment of mugs, which would be almost overwhelming if it had been any earlier in the morning.  She stood there dazed.  “You aren’t going to assess me on which mug I choose, are you?”

“I might.”

“Oh.  I guess I should be careful, then.”  And by _careful_ she meant _pick the bright mug shaped exactly like a rubber duck’s head_.  “Do you want me to get you one, too?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Luisa pulled another mug out of the cabinet, this one shaped like the evening sky and covered with swirls like a Van Gogh painting, the handle the shape and color of a crescent moon, before shutting it.  Then she moved over to the stove top and filled both mugs with generous amounts of hot chocolate – Alana’s slightly more than her own.  “Do you have any of those tiny little marshmallows?”

“Mmhm.”  Alana turned and pointed towards what Luisa guessed was the multi-purpose pantry (as opposed to what she’d already dubbed the _baking supplies cabinets_ ).  “Should be in there.”  She paused and glanced at the mugs.  “You picked the duck.”

“That could be yours!” Luisa exclaimed as she scavenged around in the pantry.  “I could have chosen the other one!”

“Uh-huh.  Do you remember what the other one looked like?”

Luisa paused, lips pressed between her teeth.  “No.”  She pulled out the bag of marshmallows and escaped the pantry.  “But it _could_ have been mine.”

“You picked the duck.”

“I picked the duck,” Luisa admitted with a sigh.  “What does that say about me?”

“That you picked the duck,” Alana said, grinning.  She took a sip of her own hot chocolate and let out a sigh of contentment.  “Not every choice has to have some deep psychological meaning.  Sometimes a choice is just a choice and a duck is just a duck.”  Another sip, then, “For instance, choosing the green apron over the yellow one.  There’s no deeper psychological meaning there.  You just have a preference.”

“But choosing the green over the blue—“ Luisa started, opening the bag of tiny marshmallows and scattering more than a few in her rubber duck-shaped mug.

“—would also not necessarily have had some deeper meaning.  _You_ gave it meaning because the blue one reminded you of your mom.  That isn’t a bad thing,” Alana said immediately as she watched Luisa’s eyes widen, “it just _is_ a thing.  Not bad, not good, simply _is_.”

Luisa took a sip of her hot chocolate, chewing thoughtfully on the marshmallows that poured into her mouth.  “Wow, this is _really_ good.  What did you do to it?”

“Milk instead of water, first off.”  Alana tilted her head to one side, dark curls tickling her shoulders.  “Never use water if you want good hot chocolate.  Milk is thicker and has _much_ better flavor.”

“And then you melt the chocolate into the milk?  Do you add spices?  Is there,” Luisa licked her lips a couple of times, tasting, “cinnamon?”

Alana nodded.  “I don’t use melted chocolate.  I use _this_.”  She pulled out a huge plastic tub of Nutella and then held up one finger.  “No telling.”

“I would never.”  Luisa grinned as she took another sip of her hot chocolate, finishing the mug.  She moved to refill it, adding a few marshmallows to the bottom of her mug before adding the drink itself.  “So, how do we make these cookies of yours?  Sugar, right?  Do we get to make them into all sorts of weird shapes?”

“Of course we get to make shapes.  What sort of therapist do you think I am?  I can get all sorts of ideas about the inner workings of your brain _just_ from the designs you make.”

“Really?” Luisa asked.

“No.”  Alana shook her head.  “I’m kidding.  But you _believed_ me, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did!”  Luisa put her mug down on the counter as Alana handed her a big plastic bowl.  “I guess that says something about choices being choices and my remembering it.”  She stared at the size of the bowl she’d been handed.  “How many of these are we making…?”

“About six dozen.”

Luisa almost dropped the bowl in her surprise.  “Why do we need that many?”

“We don’t.  But I’m doubling the recipe.  I’ll keep some here for clients – and myself, I’ll eat most of them myself – and you’ll take some with you.”

“You sure you’re not just using me as your work horse?”  Luisa asked as she set the bowl down on the island.  “Free labor with the mental institutionalized woman?”

Alana shrugged.  “Would you rather I put all of this back and we sit and drink hot cocoa on the couch?”

“At this point, I’m not sure.”

“C’mon.”  Alana nudged her with one elbow.  “Give it a try.”

“I’m _here_ , aren’t I?  Doesn’t that count as trying?”

Alana passed Luisa two sticks of butter.  “Unwrap these and put them in your bowl.  Then get a couple of cups of sugar and pour that in, too.”

Luisa nodded, unwrapping the sticks as she watched Alana move to the oven.  The buttons beeped as she pressed them.

“Tell me more about your father.”

“He’s Italian.”  Luisa poured the first cup of sugar into her bowl.  “He loves wine and cigars and coffee.”  She poured in the second cup.  “Now what?”

“You stir,” Alana passed her a spoon, “while I work on the dry parts.”  She began to measure her ingredients into a separate bowl.  “Keep talking.”

“He always wanted me to drink my coffee black, because that’s much more proper and manly, but I like it better with the cream and sugar.  Also _iced_ coffee with just a hint of milk as opposed to his steaming hot, mouth-burning, flavorless drivel.”  She sighed as she continued to stir the butter and sugar.  “Coffee was the one thing he was good at making, actually.  He used to import coffee beans from all over the world – he probably still does – and grinds them down himself.  He says it makes them taste better, but I’m not so sure about that.  The only thing that makes _his_ coffee better is a shot of whiskey.  Or some Bailey’s.”

“Do you drink a lot?” Alana asked as she began to mix her ingredients.

“I wouldn’t say _a lot_.”  Mostly, Luisa wouldn’t mention her drinking aloud to most people.  She just _did_.  It was easier that way.  Ask forgiveness instead of permission.  But she fell into silence as she continued to try to stir the sugar and butter together, which was harder than she thought it would be because the butter just didn’t want to stir.  “I guess it depends on who you compare me to.”  Another sigh.  “Yeah, I drink a lot.  It keeps my head quiet.  It makes me feel better.”

“Better how?”

“I don’t know how to describe it.”  Luisa paused in her stirring and glanced up.  “It’s like the world is harsh and jagged, and when I drink, it softens and it’s happy and lively again.  Like I’m holding my breath and then I take a drink and I can breathe again.  Like poking my head above water.”  She went back to her stirring.  “That probably sounds bad to you.  I probably shouldn’t drink that much.”

_I probably shouldn’t feel so dependent on it just to breathe._

“How have you been doing without it so far?”

“About as well as without coffee.  Better, maybe.  Coffee is an acceptable addiction, alcohol not so much.”

“Would you call yourself an addict?”

“ _I_ wouldn’t, but other people might.  I’ve been drinking my way through school since I was young,” she began to tick off on her fingers.  “I still aced my classes and did well on my tests, so it didn’t really matter.  It didn’t seem to have an effect, other than making me feel _better_ , so why stop?”  Luisa glanced into her bowl.  “Am I doing this right?”

“You’re doing just fine.”  Alana peeked over and nodded once.  “Go ahead and add two eggs, then measure in a couple teaspoons of vanilla and another teaspoon of—“  She paused, brows furrowing, then shook her head.  “No, just add the vanilla.”

Luisa’s eyes narrowed.  “What were you going to say?”

“Almond.  But allergies to nuts are a concern, both with some of my clients and I _think_ with some of the others in your group.  So no almond this time.  Maybe later, when it’s just for us.”

Luisa pressed her lips together.  “There’s going to be a later?  A _just us_?”

Alana shrugged.  “That’s up to you.”  She returned to her bowl.  “Keep talking.”  This time she gestured with one finger in the air, circling it slightly.  “Does your father know you drink?”

“My father’s Italian,” Luisa repeated with a shrug – a bad idea while she continued to stir, adding in the eggs and the vanilla extract, which helped a little bit, but not too much.  Maybe they should have heated the butter first, melted it a little bit, so that this part would have been easier.  “Drinking’s something he’s done since before he can even remember.  It’s communal.  It’s part of your family time.  Mom wasn’t much for it, but after she died….”  Luisa’s voice faded out again.  “I remember the two of them drinking from wine glasses in front of the fireplace.  I don’t think that’s actually a _real_ memory, though.  We live in Miami.  There aren’t fireplaces in Miami.”  She laughed at herself, shaking her head once or twice.  “But I think they _did_ drink together.  I didn’t drink with them, of course, but by the time I was twelve, Dad had be drinking with him.  I was drinking before that, but I don’t think he knew that.”

“When did you have your first drink?”

“I was six.  I didn’t know what it was,” Luisa said quickly, as though that made it any better.  “One of my babysitters was trying to get me to quiet down enough to sleep.  I wanted my mom.  She was dead.  That didn’t really help matters.”

Alana placed one hand over Luisa’s.  “You can stop stirring now.  It looks good.”

“Thanks.”  Luisa looked over to Alana’s bowl.  “Now what?”

“Switch bowls.”

“What?”

Alana nodded towards Luisa’s bowl.  “Trust me, if you had trouble with _that_ , this will be a lot harder.  Let me do the stirring for now.  You just pour some of this in, a little at a time, and keep talking.”

Luisa shook her head again as she took Alana’s bowl and poured a little of the dry ingredients in with her butter, sugar, vanilla, egg mixture.  “You tell me to keep talking like I haven’t been told I need to keep things to myself for most of my life.”

“Has it worked?”

“No.”  Luisa couldn’t help but grin.  “When do I get to stick my finger in and eat the dough?”

“I’ll let you know.”  Alana nudged her with one elbow again.  “Tell me more.”

“About what?”

“Your family.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What do you want to tell me?”

“That’s helpful.”  Luisa poured a little more of the dry mix into the bowl while Alana continued to stir.  “My father owns and runs a chain of hotels.  He’d just started out when he and my mother were married, and things were starting to grow when she--  Right before she died.”  Her eyes flicked up to Alana’s face to see if there was any change as she avoided talking about her mother earlier.  Her therapist’s expression didn’t seem to change, and she could feel herself relaxing, even as she knew that the other woman was probably filing it away to bring it up again later.  “Raf’s mother – my first stepmother – must have helped with the expansion, because by the time they divorced, it’d grown from one hotel to two to three to some all over the world.  We moved to Italy for a short while after she left, so start the first one there, and then we moved around a lot, from one hotel to another.  Eventually, he got tired of carting Raf and I around and left us in Miami with one of his wives or, when we were old enough, by ourselves.”

Luisa stopped, placing her now empty bowl on the top of the island.  She brushed some flour from her hands, thought better of it, and then brushed them against her apron instead with a childish grin.  “Okay.  Now what?”

“Now you take a break and drink more hot chocolate.”

“Okay.  I can do that.”  Luisa took her rubber duck head-shaped mug and leaned against the back countertop.  She sipped at her now lukewarm chocolate, still pleasantly content with the amount of marshmallows but gleefully pouring more into her mug anyway, as well as topping her mug off with a little more of what was left on the stove.  “What was your family like?”  She knew that, strictly speaking, this was none of her business, and that, despite the baking and the hot chocolate and the tiny little marshmallows that were probably about half of everything in her mug right now, they weren’t really friends, but she couldn’t help but ask anyway.  She couldn’t help it.  She was curious!

“Not near that exciting,” Alana said with a smile as she continued to try and mix the dough together into something smooth enough to roll out and shape.  “My mother, my younger brother, and I lived in the same city my entire life.  My father died when I was really young, right after Daniel was born.”

“Did that have something to do with why you went into psychology?”

Alana’s eyebrows raised as she turned to face Luisa.  “That sounds like a _fourth_ or _fifth_ therapy session kind of question to me.”

“Oh, there are rules to this?”  Luisa hid beneath her mug, trying not to grin.  “I didn’t know.  Is this similar to the _dating_ rules of questions, or--?”

“Are you trying to _date_ me, Ms. Alver?”

Luisa shook her head, laughing, and choked on the little marshmallows already suffocating the head of her poor little duck.  She coughed, pounding on her chest a couple of times, and then finally swallowed.  “No,” she coughed out, waving a hand as Alana stared at her, worried.  “Don’t have enough sanity for the dating scene right now.  Don’t have a bedroom to take you back to.  Wouldn’t go very well.”

“Wouldn’t go well _indeed_.”

The bowl once in Alana’s hands clattered as she placed it on the edge of the island.  She began moving the other bowls off of island to the countertop behind her, then paused, taking a huge gulp of her own hot chocolate.  When she pulled the mug away, there was a chocolate mustache left just above her top lip.

Luisa didn’t say anything.

“I’m just trying to figure out what I can and can’t ask.”

“Ask whatever you want,” Alana said as she leaned against the countertop with a sigh.  “I’ll do the same.  And just like you’ll let me know when I’ve crossed one of your boundaries, I’ll let you know when you’ve crossed one of mine.”  She brushed her hands against her apron.  “You almost ready to get back to it?”

“Sure.”  Luisa placed her mug down on the countertop behind her and clapped her hands together, a smile brightening its way onto her face.  “What do you want me to do?”

“Well.”  Alana took a lump of the cookie dough out of the bowl and slammed it down on the counter with a large thunk.  Then she passed Luisa a rolling pin before taking out another lump of her own.  “Roll it as flat as you can.”

“Oh, I can do that.  That’s easy.  That’s—“  Luisa began to try and roll the lump of dough out, only to find that it didn’t flatten very far.  She pressed down further on it, and there wasn’t much of a budge at all.  She grinned as Alana stared at her.  “I can do it!  Don’t worry!”

“Ok, but if you need any help—“

“No help!  I can do it!  All!  By!  Myself!”

If she were cooking all by herself, Luisa would probably have smacked the lump of dough with her rolling pin a couple of times or more, just to make herself feel better about not being able to flatten it out half as easily as she thought she would, but since she was in company, _particularly_ that of her therapist, she decided against it.

Well.

Once for good measure.

One good _thwack_!

Alana jumped next to her and stared at her with bright eyes, and Luisa just gave her a grin.  “My mom used to do this with bread dough when she was having trouble with it.  Not that I remember her doing it, but my grandmother, Alegria, she used to tell me about it all the time.”

“You spend a lot of time with your grandmother?”

“Not really.”  Luisa shook her head and began to press deep into the dough, trying to get the kinks out so that it would lie flat.  “Sometimes Dad would leave me with her, but once he and Raf’s mother got divorced, I didn’t really see her.  We were traveling so much that there wasn’t the time.  By the time we were back in the states….”

“She was dead?”

“No.”  Luisa looked over at Alana’s slowly flattening cookie dough and frowned.  “How did you get it that flat so fast?”

“Practice.  You don’t do this very often at all, do you?”

“Not at all.”  Luisa shook her head.  “I think the last time I made cookies was with one of my old roommates.  There were three of us – no, four, including me, I always forget to count me! – living in this one big house, and we were going to throw a party, so me and Diane made cookies.  Well.  I _tried_ , but mine didn’t turn out very well.  Diane’s were so much better.  Mine were all burned.  It was such a pain.”

“You didn’t just put them all in at the same time?”

“No.  And I think I was in a hurry, so I turned the oven heat up and then forgot they were in the oven.  I might’ve been a _bit_ drunk.”

“Is this a common theme in you college stories?  You, drunk?”

“It’s _college_.  What’s the point if you don’t have fun drunk stories?”  Luisa grinned her most winsome grin but pressed even deeper into the dough, pounding it as much as she could with her rolling pin.  “Not all college stories are drunk stories.  I know.  Carla didn’t have _any at all_.  In fact, she refused to drink.  Something about one of her uncles.”

“What about her uncle?”

Luisa shook her head again.  “If she’s not real, it doesn’t matter, does it?”  Her lips pressed together.  “Dough’s flat.  Now we get to make the shapes, right?”

“Right.”  Alana pulled open one of the island drawers, showing that it was full to the brim of different kinds of cookie cutters and shapes.  “Pick whatever you want from these, and if you want more _seasonal_ ones,” she pulled open another drawer to the left of the first one, “Christmas shapes are in here, Valentine shapes beneath those, and even a handful of Easter ones under that, but I wouldn’t go with Easter ones right now.”

Luisa had already started shuffling through the first drawer when she perked up, a couple designs already hung about her thin wrist.  “Why not?”

“The most you’ll find are eggs and crosses, and although we _can_ do some icing designs on them, they can look kind of boring in comparison to snowmen or flowers or roses—“

“You have roses?”  Luisa’s eyes widened immediately, and her lips spread into a grin.  “Where?”

After a few minutes of searching through the drawers, Alana pulled three different rose designs out from deep in one of the drawers.  “Here you are!”  She passed them over to Luisa, who began pressing them into her dough.  “You like roses?”

“No – the other patient – Rose, the one you know as Clara – I thought she might like them.”

Alana fell silent for a moment as she pulled out some designs for her own freshly rolled out lump of dough, but Luisa didn’t notice.  Her therapist often spent time not talking, just listening, as they continued their work, so she didn’t see anything different with this particular moment.

“I won’t do all of mine with roses.  I could do some other flowers, too.  Daisies.  Tulips.  Maybe now the eggs would look okay.”  She grinned and nudged Alana with her elbow before remembering that they weren’t – _they weren’t friends_ – and she stopped.  “Sorry.  I wasn’t thinking.  I shouldn’t have…you know.”

“It’s fine, Luisa.  Don’t worry about it.”  By this time, whatever had bothered Alana by the mere mention of Clara had passed, and a warm smile brightened her cheeks instead.

“You don’t feel threatened by the girl with hallucination problems?”

“Luisa, if I felt _threatened_ by you, I wouldn’t let you in my kitchen.  With the knives.”  Alana’s brows raised.  “I don’t see you as much of a risk as you see yourself.  Don’t worry about it.”

Luisa nodded and began to press more cookie cutter shapes into her rolled out lump of dough.  She watched as Alana slowly picked up her cookie shapes and moved them to a cookie sheet, and she followed the same action, placing hers on a brand new sheet, so that the two could remain separate.  Then, even though she saw Alana taking her leftover dough and reballing it together before rolling it back out into another thick piece to cut out more cookies, she tore some of her pieces out and popped them into her mouth.

 _Mmmmmmmm_ , cookie dough.

“ _Luisa._ ”

“Hm?”

“You’re supposed to be making cookies, not eating the dough.”

But Alana spoke with a smile still on her lips, her words more the gentle chiding of a mother or a friend than anything that indicated true upset.

“You forget that I’m _horrible_ at making cookies.  I know I said the last time I made cookies was in college, but I’ve a bad habit of breaking into the hotel kitchen and stealing the dough.  Or buying some of that premade stuff – the little squares that you just break apart and pop in the oven?  I buy that and eat it plain.”  She stuck one of her fingers in her mouth and licked the dough off of it.  “ _So_ much better than the cookies are.”  She hummed in pleasure.  “Okay, where’s the sink – you’re going to want me to wash before touching the dough again in case I’m _diseased_ or _contagious_ or something, right?”

Alana nodded.  “Spoken like a true doctor.”  She tilted her head to the left.  “Sink’s over there.”

“I’m not a doctor.  _Yet._ ”  And right now, Luisa didn’t want to think about whether or not she _would_ be one.  She was headed in that direction.  She was headed toward getting better.  After passing behind Alana, she turned the water on, biting her lip at how cold it started out before sudsing up.  “I want to be, though.”

“How long have you wanted to be a doctor?”

Luisa could barely make out Alana’s words over the spray of the water, so she didn’t say anything at first, waiting until she was done washing her hands and beginning to dry them before saying anything more.

“You could hear me, right?” Alana asked as the water turned off, head turning to glance in her direction.

Luisa gave her a nod.  “I’m just thinking.”  She knew that some people had very clear moments of knowing what they wanted to be.  When she was small, she hadn’t wanted to _be_ anything.  She wanted her mother back, but that wasn’t something she could really _do_ , unless she was a necromancer.  “For a while, I wanted to be like you.  A therapist.  A psychologist.  Look deep into the broken places of people’s minds and try to fix them.”

Like her mother.  Like maybe if she knew enough she could know what would have fixed _her_.

“But the more I went in that direction, the more I learned that there wasn’t really an easy fix, that even though there are definitely different aspects that help people – talk therapy, medication, exercise, eating right – a combination of a lot of things, those combinations aren’t very objective.  They’re _subjective_ , very much in tune to who the person is and how they want to deal with their mental illness.  And even the diagnostics aren’t very specific.  A lot of symptoms overlap, and a lot of illnesses sound the same until you’re dealing with—“

Luisa pressed her lips together and shook her head.

“For years, I probably would’ve been diagnosed with depression when that really only addresses half of my symptoms.”

Her hands move together, fingers fiddling with each other.  “I didn’t feel like that was the best place for me.  Like maybe that might make me _worse_.”

“Some people believe that their own experiences with mental illness helps them address other people’s better.  But you don’t feel that way?”

Luisa shook her head.  “Not at all.  There has to be a healthy level of disconnect from your patients.  And I would....  I’d connect too easily.  I’d feel like, if they were like my mother, it would be _my fault_ because I was supposed to be the one with all the answers, and I’d failed them.  Failed their families.  I’d feel like their blood was on my hands.”

“Their choices would be their own.”

“But if I’d been able to say or do something different to reach them in a better way then I was, then maybe…maybe they wouldn’t be….”

Luisa shook her head again.  “Sorry, I’m supposed to be helping you cut out more cookies.”

“No, this is good.  But if you’ll open the oven for me?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”  Luisa moved to the oven, pulling the door open while Alana put the first few sheets of cookies on the different racks.  “That’s not all of them, is it?”

“No, just the ones you’ll be taking with you.”  Alana tilted her head towards the rest of the dough still left in the bowl.  “I’ll do the rest of them later.”  She smiled warmly and took her mug, topping it off with more hot chocolate.  “We can go sit in front of the fireplace while they cook, if you’d like.”

Luisa nodded.  But before she followed Alana into the living room, she filled her mug halfway with more tiny little marshmallows, then filled it up the rest of the way with even more hot chocolate.  She curled up on one corner of the couch, next to the threadbare pillow that Applesauce, Alana’s dog, was resting her head on.  “So I decided that psychology wasn’t for me and went into other medical pursuits.”

“And you weren’t worried about your new clients dying from their illnesses?”

Luisa shrugged.  “I haven’t gotten that far yet.  _But_ I’ve decided to be an ob/gyn.  Then it’s more about keeping track, about checking to see if something _is_ a problem and then, if it is, passing it on to someone else who knows more about how to deal with it.  It goes somewhere else in the food chain, doesn’t stay with me.”

“But pregnancies—“

“Yeah.  I know.”  Luisa pressed her lips together.  “I’ll get used to that.  It’s easier, when it’s a child, when it’s something that’s just a hoped for dream.  We’re used to dreams dying.  _I’m_ used to dreams dying.  And if I can help the mother work through it…that’s different than feeling personally responsible for the death.”

“You sound very sure of yourself.”

“For someone who has been drunk through most of her classes, I remember a lot.”  Luisa nestled back into the couch cushions, both hands grasped around her still warm mug of hot chocolate, fingers interlaced together.  She gazed into her now mostly small marshmallow full mug.  “And I can be with them through the pregnancy.  I can watch the little person inside them grow and make sure that they are taken care of as much as possible.  I can be there when they’re born and make sure they come through safely.  I can see the mothers and fathers have that first look at their kid and that relief and joy and excitement and--"  Her lips pressed together, cutting herself off.

Sometimes Luisa wondered what _her_ parents’ faces were like, when _she_ was born.  She knew that her father had been robbed of that when Raf was born – her stepmother, at the time, had gone into labor early – she couldn’t know _how_ early, only that they were surprised that Rafael had even lived at all – and her father had been on a business trip in the big city.  He’d rushed back, but by the time he’d returned, Rafael had already been born.

Elena had left her with a babysitter.  She didn’t remember much about it.  Mostly she’d been glad that she’d been able to get away from her stepmother, even if it was only for a little bit of time.  She’d never really liked her.  Or the way she’d been treated while she was pregnant.  Or the way she’d been treated by her at all.

“Do you want to have kids?”

Luisa’s head snapped up from where she’d been gazing into her mug, and she blinked once as she met her therapist’s ice blue eyes.  “What?”

“Do you want to have kids?” Alana repeated.  Her voice was soft and gentle, not pressuring in the slightest.

Luisa gazed back down into her mug of hot chocolate.  “I don’t know.”  She ran her finger along the lip of her mug.  “I’d like to have a daughter – or a son, I know it’s not like you get to _choose_ – but I don’t….”  Her lips pressed together again.  “I don’t want them to have my genes.  My _mother’s_ genes.  I don’t want them to wind up the way we have.”

“What do you mean?”

_Am I crazy?_

_I’m not crazy._

_I’m not—_

“—crazy.”  Luisa whispered the word and hoped that it was too soft for the other woman to hear before taking another sip of her hot chocolate.  The marshmallows felt large in her throat.  For all her assertions that she _wasn’t_ , there was still a part of her that was very much afraid that she was.  “I think, sometimes, that my life is just a mirror of hers.  Only…without the husband.  Or kids.”  She grinned as she looked up, then shrugged again.  “I don’t want my daughter – or son – or _whatever_ they end up being to feel like _I_ felt when she died or to feel like they’re just going to end up _crazy like their mother_.  I don’t want my mental illness to make its way into my kids because no child _deserves_ that, and I don’t—“

The alarm in the kitchen suddenly went off, interrupting her, and Luisa’s head popped up.  Her eyes met Alana’s, briefly, and Alana gave a little sigh.  “Is it the cookies?”

“Yeah.”  Alana placed her mug on the coffee table and stood, brushing her hands on her apron again.  “Can you hold onto that thought for just one moment?”

“Of course.  Of _course_.  Don’t worry about it.”  Luisa waved one hand in Alana’s direction, and her therapist left her to her own thoughts as she went to pull their cookies out of the oven, to replace these cookie sheets with a couple more, these cookies more in globular shapes than in anything specific.  Maybe she would decorate them later, so that they would be as fun as the others they’d made.  Or maybe she had clients that couldn’t do the fancy shapes, who would be thrown into confusion and distress by them.

Maybe Luisa didn’t really care about Alana’s other patients.

Some people might have felt put off by their therapist being distracted by their baking, but for Luisa, it was nice to have the breather, to go over her thoughts and decide whether or not they were worth it.  Whether they were actually _true_.

Kirs were…complicated.  Luisa liked the idea of having kids, and if she thought about her future, she thought about having a wife and a child – or maybe more than one child, she wasn’t too specific – and having the whole house and white picket fence and just _happy_.  And maybe that was more what she’d been trained to want by society – okay, maybe not the _wife_ part, society would not have trained her to want that – but it was still something she wanted, it was still something that sounded _happy_ , it was still--

It was _normal_ , and a large part of Luisa ached to be normal.  To not be an alcoholic, to not have these mental issues, to be able to have a happy home and life that so many other people could obtain in what seemed to be so effortless a moment, a _lifetime_ , and she was just sitting here with her therapist struggling for stability and sanity in a world that honestly didn’t seem to care about her or what she wanted.  And maybe the world wasn’t _supposed_ to care.  Maybe she couldn’t _be_ normal.  Maybe that wasn’t the type of person she was supposed to be.  But that didn’t mean she didn’t still _ache_ for it.

Alana came back into the living room and curled back up on the opposite end of the sofa and, before moving to pick up her mug, asked, voice still just as calm and gentle, “Are you okay?”

And Luisa shook her head.  She pressed her lips together and curled them between her teeth and she shook her head.  “No,” she said, finally.  “No, I’m not.  And I’m not sure if I will be – or if I even _can_ be – ever again.”

And it seemed to her to be the truest thing she’d said the entire time she was there.


	8. Chapter 8

Luisa took a deep breath as she walked back into Belle Reve, the platter of cookies in her hand.  It’s plastic wrapped in plastic, a plate that could be easily thrown away when it was of no more use, but that wasn’t her main concern.  She knew how institutions tended to look on outside food, especially when it was meant to be shared.  The intern at the door looked at the plate then back to her with a bored expression.

“You were with Dr. Bloom?”

“Yes.”  Luisa nodded rapidly.  “Yes, and we made sugar cookies, and we made sure to make them friendly to everyone, I mean, they aren’t, not really, because they aren’t gluten-free, but they’re _nut_ free, and they’re just sugar cookies, so there’s no chocolate even, so—”

“You’re good.”  The intern pressed the button and the door unlocked.

“Oh.”  Luisa opened the door with one hand, holding the platter of cookies tight with the other.  “Thank you.”  She stopped with the door partly held open.  “Do you want one?”

“Nah.”  The intern waved a hand.  “I can get my own later.  You have fun.”

The door clicked shut as it locked behind her, and Luisa looked in on a primarily empty room.  Even the couch where Rose normally sat was empty – her eyes immediately focused on it, ready to share cookies with the woman who’d been nothing but helpful to her during the past couple of days.  Nurse Brooks was waiting for her on the other side of the door, and she touched Luisa’s back lightly as she passed her.  “They’re at lunch.”

“That soon?”

Luisa hadn’t noticed how short the time was between the two meals the day before.  She’d been shuttled away to Dr. Bloom’s house after breakfast, but time didn’t really seem to move in Belle Reve.  Five minutes could just as easily be ten, or thirty, or an hour, or _longer_.  They’d picked up food after leaving Dr. Bloom’s, and she’d eaten in the van, which had seemed odd at the time, but it seemed like, given the time it took to get to Dr. Bloom’s house and the time it took to get back, and, of course, the time she spent in her appointment, that she would miss lunch entirely or get there just as everything was cleaning up and not really have a full opportunity to eat.  Nurse Jennifer had given her the option, and she’d _craved_ real food – well, not _real_ food, but they’d stopped at McDonald’s, and there was something wonderfully comforting about a hamburger and chicken nuggets and a large fry, even if they’d refused to let her get anything caffeinated.

“You’ve been gone for a while, Luisa.”

“I’m not even hungry.”

Brooks’s gaze lingered on the platter of sugar cookies.  “I can see why.”

“No, that’s not—”  And Luisa paused, blushing, “I mean, I did get to eat some of the raw dough, but not a lot, and we kept most of the cookies separate so I could bring some to share during group—”

“Do you want to keep any for yourself?”

Luisa looked down at the plate then shook her head.  “If there’s any left after group, I can take those, but if there aren’t any, then that’s fine.  I just thought—”

“Let me take that, then,” Brooks said, “and you go eat lunch.”  She took the platter of cookies out of Luisa’s hand, holding it carefully.  “I’ll make sure it makes it to group.  You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Ok.”  Luisa wasn’t hesitant – she believed Brooks when the woman said she’d take care of it because she had no reason to believe she wouldn’t, even though someone else might have been wary (or not allowed the nurse to take the platter at all).  “I’ll just…go then?”

It was the way Brooks had constantly interrupted her that was such a bother, Luisa realized while she was walking to the cafeteria.  But, then, she definitely rambled and rattled off.  It only made sense that the head nurse, who probably had a million and one better things to do, cut her off when she understood what she was saying.  Still, Luisa was determined that, when _she_ was a doctor – _if_ she was a doctor – **when** she was a doctor, she would do things differently.

At least, _she_ wouldn’t interrupt.

Luisa went to the cafeteria and then through the line.  She met Rose’s eyes and began to head to her, so that they could sit together, but Rose looked down at her own tray then stood and left the room, discarding her food even though most of it hadn’t been eaten.  At first, it left an unsettling feeling in the pit of Luisa’s chest, but then she remembered that sometimes Rose liked to sit by herself.  It probably wasn’t anything personal.  Even if it _did_ feel like it.

Her eyes roamed the room, and while she saw Betty and Jessica sitting at their normal spot, she decided not to sit with them.  Luisa felt as if she knew them well enough without eating with them, too, and in fact didn’t really _want_ to sit with them, afraid that Jessica would just ask questions that Luisa didn’t want to answer or continue to try and keep her from spending so much time with Rose.  She’d had enough of that sort of conversation without hearing it again now, thank you very much.

So, instead, Luisa moved towards Alice, who seemed to be sitting alone again.

Luisa placed her tray across from Alice with a clatter, and the blonde girl jumped in her seat before staring up with wide blue eyes.  “It’s okay!” Luisa said immediately.  “It’s okay, really, you haven’t done anything wrong, and if you don’t want me to sit here, I won’t, I just thought, because you’re sitting by yourself, that maybe it would be okay if I sat with you?”

Alice glanced from Luisa back to her tray and then back up again.

Luisa smiled.  “You don’t even have to say anything.  That’s what your book is for, right?  You can just blink once for yes and twice for no and _trust me_ , I talk a lot, so if you don’t want to say anything, you don’t have to, and if you do, you can, or you can use your book, or—”  Then she shook her head with a laugh.  “I’m rambling again.  Is it okay if I sit with you?”

After a quick glance back to her own tray and then back up, Alice nodded once.  Then her eyes widened, and she took a small gasp.  She met Luisa’s eyes and blinked once, very firmly.

“It’s okay if you’d rather nod!” Luisa said, and she patted Alice’s hand once before scooting into the seat opposite her.  “If nodding is easier, you can do that instead of the blinking thing!  I understand the nod!”

Alice smiled, face flushing a bright rose color, and she brushed a hand through her blonde hair before pulling it back from her face.  She pulled out her book and scanned through the pages before finding a specific one, and she pointed to a circled phrase.

_I don’t eat like normal people.  I know it’s weird, but it’s one of my…my things.  Please don’t laugh at me._

“Of course not!”  Luisa tapped her fork on the edge of her tray.  “I wouldn’t laugh at you.  Is it an ocd thing, or—?”  She cut herself off then, shaking her head.  “Sorry, I forget that some people don’t like talking about that sort of thing.  _I_ don’t even like talking about it most of the time.  I’m just curious and I don’t always think before I speak and you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.  I get it.  That stuff’s private.”

Alice nodded but turned to another page in her book, tapping it.  _I have really severe social anxiety.  It’s why I have trouble speaking._

“Wouldn’t it be easier to speak than to carry around the book?  I mean, aren’t you worried about how people think about you carrying that around?”

The blonde blanched and bit her lower lip, gaze dropping.

“Sorry, sorry!  I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable and I already am.  I,” and Luisa reached over, placing her hand on Alice’s again, “honestly do _not_ care about you using the book to speak, and I don’t think anyone else in here does either.”  She smiled.  “That’s why you’re here, right?  To try and get back to speaking again?”

Alice nodded.  _Using the book isn’t easier, but it’s been so long that it feels easier sometimes._

“When was the last time you spoke?”  Luisa watched as Alice turned to a blank sheet in her book, and she decided to use the writing time to begin to eat, a pattern that she kept up throughout their conversation.

_Dr. Bloom has me speak a little bit during our sessions.  I’ve gotten better at talking with her, but she’s been trying to get me to talk to the nurses who drive me there, too.  That’s still hard._

“Do you want to talk with me?”  Luisa then continued without giving enough of a pause for Alice to write anything down.  “No pressure!  I understand if you don’t!  But sometimes it can help to get comfortable with someone else and I know there are a lot of people here so it…probably wouldn’t just be with me, but maybe that can help, too, because then it’s like other people could be listening even if they aren’t and—”

Alice shook her head rapidly, blinking a lot, and then wrote furiously in her book.  _Thinking about other people listening makes it worse.  I wouldn’t want them to laugh at me!  My voice sounds weird and quiet and rough and raspy.  They’d be so shocked to hear me!  They’d make a really big deal out of it, and I just want—_   And here something was scratched out, replaced with something else entirely.  _I’d be afraid if people started calling attention to it.  I can’t just talk to everyone.  It’s hard._

“That’s okay.”  Luisa smiled.  “If you want, whenever you’re ready, you can come get me, and we can talk in my room.  It’s mostly just Betty and me – and sometimes Jessica – but Betty won’t try and talk to you because she doesn’t really talk either.”  She shrugged.  “I don’t know if it’s the same thing you have, though.”

 _I don’t know_ , Alice wrote.  _I haven’t asked.  I thought she might be offended._   She tapped the book with her pencil.  _And I don’t know if I want to talk with Jessica.  She’d be one of those people who would be really excited, I think, and I’d clam up._

“You don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to talk with.”

 _I know._   Alice smiled.  _My dad used to tell me that all the time.  It’s my mom that has it hard.  I don’t talk with her the way I do with Dad, and I know it bothers her.  She’s always wanted so much more from me, though, and I know that I disappoint her.  She hates my being here at all, and that makes it harder to talk with her._

“My dad’s a lot like your mom,” Luisa said, leaning back in her chair.  “He expects a lot from me and my brother, Rafael.  More from me, I think, because of my IQ, but he always takes it out on my brother.  I know I’m new and everything, but I don’t really expect him to visit.  He has a hard time with mental institutions.”

 _What about your mom?_ Alice wrote.  _Is she like my dad?  Will she come to visit?_

Luisa pressed her lips together so tight that her teeth dug into them, and her glance faltered, focusing on the now mostly empty tray in front of her.  She was silent for a while.  “My mom was a lot like me,” she said, finally, and when she looked up, Alice had huddled forward, writing furiously in her little book.

Alice’s face was stone white when she looked back up.  _I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.  I’m so sorry.  Please forgive me.  It was an accident.  I’m so sorry._

“Hey, it’s okay!  You didn’t know!”  Luisa reached over and patted Alice’s hand again.  “I don’t like talking about my mom much.  Painful memories.  But I can, sometimes.  You can ask about her whenever you want, and if I don’t want to answer, I’ll just let you know.  I won’t tell you not to worry about it, because I know that doesn’t do anyone any good at all, but it’s okay.  Really!”

_But what if you’re having a bad day and I don’t know about it?  I wouldn’t want to make it worse by bringing her up._

“If you don’t want to bring her up, then don’t.  If you’re curious, I’m giving you permission to go ahead and ask.  Okay?”

Alice nodded, but it was a hesitant acceptance.  In fact, it was so slight that Luisa was certain the girl wouldn’t bring up her mother ever again.  Give her long enough, though, and Luisa might bring her up herself.  She didn’t like to, but in an institution like this, her mother was bound to come up.  She already _had_.  Being here, Luisa couldn’t help but think about her.

She’d used her mom far too often as a ruler.  You have to be _this tall_ to be considered crazy.  _These_ are your hallmarks.  At this point, it felt like the only one she had left was jumping off a bridge.  But she didn’t want to think about that.

“Hey, Dr. Bloom and I made cookies for the group,” Luisa said, breaking the silence.  “You can have some later, if you want.”

Alice’s eyes widened, and Luisa could almost _hear_ her saying, _“I can?”_ even though she didn’t say it, didn’t even write it in her little book.  It took a little bit, but then she nodded – once, very firm – as though trying to keep herself from nodding rapidly, the way Luisa would if someone had baked cookies during _their_ therapy session and told _her_ she could have some.  Then she ran one hand through her blonde hair, flattening it between her fingers.

“It should be soon, right?”

The blonde nodded once, then scribbled in her book.  _Where were you yesterday?_

“I was exhausted and had a huge headache and after that panic attack – you saw it, right? – I just passed out on the couch.  Apparently they let me skip.”

_Denise was with you._

“Yeah!  Rose!”  Luisa tapped her fingers on the table.  “Was she Denise before she changed to Rose?”

_I don’t know.  That was how she introduced herself to me.  I don’t talk to her very often, though.  Other people say she changes her name a lot, and she fights with the nurses about it a lot.  I haven’t really paid that much attention since we stopped talking.  I just remembered her as Clara and then remembered she didn’t want to be called that._

“Oh.”

Luisa’s face pulled into a sour expression, lips pursed to one side.  “I think she’ll be Rose for a while.  I asked her to do it for me.  I mean, I know I don’t mean anything being new and everything, but she’s been really nice, so maybe, you know, she’ll think about it or something.”

Alice shook her head.  _She seemed nice at first for me, too.  Maybe she’ll be different with you._

“What did she do to you?”

This time Alice shook her head again.  She took a deep breath and flipped to a page in her book before tapping a circled phrase, one she must have used multiple times with other people.  _Thank you for talking with me, but I’ve reached my social level right now.  I need to take some time for myself.  Maybe we can talk again later?_

“Of course!” Luisa said with a grin.  “Later.  You take your time.  I get it.”

Alice offered her another pleasant smile then took her tray and left.  She turned back just before exiting the cafeteria and gave Luisa a little wave with just her first two fingers.  Luisa waved back.

When Luisa looked around the cafeteria, she realized that, for the most part, she was alone.  Most of the other residents had already finished eating and left, just like Rose had earlier.  And honestly?  Looking down at her own half-eaten tray, Luisa realized that she wasn’t that hungry, either.  So she took Alice’s cue and left, too.

* * *

 

There wasn’t much time between lunch and group, but it was enough for Luisa to do a little bit of personalization in her corner of the room.  She put a few photos up – the one of her with her mother and father right next to her bed so that she could face it while she fell asleep, one of her brother when he was small on top of her filing cabinet dresser, one of him older with one of the girlfriends that he’d dumped (or maybe that one had dumped him) within a week of the picture, one of him and her father drinking coffee together (they had been _so_ upset with her after she took it because both of them – both of them! – liked to pose for the camera, especially if she was going to be showing it off to other people, but she’d _wanted_ something that looked _normal_ and she was even happier to have it now that she was somewhere _not_ normal) – but none of Carla, none of the ones that would hopefully turn empty while she was here.  They might once have been happy pictures, but they weren’t right now.

Her thumb ran over one of the pictures – her and Carla, a selfie, with Carla’s arms around her shoulders, head next to hers, and she was kissing her cheek.  It was one of her favorites, even now, knowing that Carla wasn’t real.  If she were anywhere else, Luisa might have put it up right next to the picture of her mother, but this one….  She didn’t want to see Carla fade from it slowly over time, she didn’t want to come back one day from a therapy session and see… _nothing_ , see herself kissing nothing but air and know exactly what the picture once looked like.

A knock came at her bedroom door and Luisa _jumped_ , dropping the picture into the box with the other unplaced pictures.  She quickly put the lid back on top of her box of mementos and turned to face the door with wide eyes.

“Time for group,” Rose said, poking her head around the doorframe.  “I thought you might want to walk with me.”

Luisa relaxed as she saw the redhead, letting out a deeply held breath.  “I’m glad it’s you.  I thought it might be Brooks or Jessica, but Betty’s not here, so it _couldn’t_ be Jessica.  She wouldn’t be coming back for me.”

“They’re probably still watching one of their old shows.”  Rose entered the room, one bare foot scuffing along the tiled floor.  “You got your stuff back.”

“Just before dinner,” Luisa said, holding the box tight in her hand.  “I didn’t really have the energy to put any of it up yesterday, but I had time today, so I thought I’d put some of it up before group.”  She took the picture of her with her parents down and handed it to Rose.  “This one is my favorite.”

Rose took the picture in her hands, rubbing one finger along the people in it.  Her eyes narrowed briefly.  “Your family looks happy.”

“Yeah,” Luisa said with a nod.  “That was a _long_ time ago, though.”  She tapped the photo once.  “Right before I met Carla, actually.”

Rose handed the photo back, and Luisa set it in the same place she had before.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”  Luisa shrugged once.  “We have group, right?  So there’s not really that much time.”

At the very mention of group, Rose’s soft expression shifted into a frustrated scowl.

“That bad, huh?”

Rose’s brows lifted.  “You don’t know.”  She grabbed Luisa’s elbow and tugged on it before starting out of the room.  “But you will.  Very soon.”

Luisa followed her out of the room and knocked into her a bit as Rose led the way to the room for group.  “Hey, at least there will be cookies this time!” she said with a grin.  “Dr. Bloom and I made cookies at my session earlier, and Brooks took them to make sure they’d make it to group okay, so they should be waiting for us when we get there.”  She nudged Rose with her elbow.  “I had some of the dough and it was _really_ good, so the cookies should be good, too, which is saying something because I’m _horrible_ at making cookies.”

“Dr. Bloom’s cookies are always good,” Rose said with an appreciative nod, “but if you gave them to Brooks during lunch, expect that the interns and nurses ate all of them before group.”

Luisa’s eyes widened.  “But the intern at the door said they didn’t want any!”  She frowned.  “And Brooks said she’d make sure they made it to group!”

“Brooks says a lot of things, but that doesn’t make them all true.”  Rose knocked into Luisa the slightest bit.  “But if that’s what she told _you_ , then it _must_ be true.”  Her fingers brushed against Luisa’s, and Luisa reached to tangle them together.  But as they entered the room for group, Rose dropped all pretense of friendliness with Luisa, pulling her hand away from hers and standing further away from her so that they were no longer touching at all.

“Look!” Luisa exclaimed with a grin, suppressing the feeling of sadness at Rose’s sudden disconnect.  She nodded toward a table pushed against one of the walls where the platter of cookies rested.  “The cookies are still there.  Uneaten.  Just—”  But she paused as she got closer, noting that there were significantly fewer cookies than she had brought back with her.  “Okay, _not_ uneaten.”  Her eyes narrowed, and she turned back to Rose, whose lips were pulled into that thin grin that was her way of preventing herself from laughing.  “But still there!  There are still cookies!”  Luisa took one from the plate and handed it to Rose.  “Try one.  They’re good.”

“Are you going to feed it to me?”

“No!”  Luisa shoved the cookie into Rose’s hands and crossed her arms.  “Eat your own cookie!”

“It would taste better if—”

“Don’t push your luck.”

Rose just grinned again, that same tight-lipped not laugh, and moved over to one of the chairs, swinging it around before slumping on it backwards.  She patted the empty chair to her left and then took a bite of the sugar cookie while Luisa sat down next to her.  She nodded once as she chewed and forced herself to swallow.

“You can’t tell me they taste bad,” Luisa said with a pout.  “I had some myself.  They’re just fine.”

“They’re a little dry.”

Luisa grimaced.  “but they’re chewy!  And sweet!  And _good_!”  She sat on her chair like a normal person, one leg crossed over the other (and perhaps this was intentional because it meant Rose could see her legs.  She had good legs.  _Really_ good legs.  They were one of her favorite features about herself.  Not that she was going to _tell_ Rose that.  Show, not tell.  Obviously).  “And not a _bit_ burned.”

“This one’s a little burned.”

“No, it’s not!  None of them were burned!”

“Here, _you_ taste it.”  Rose shoved the cookie into Luisa’s gaping mouth, and Luisa spluttered a bit before Rose took it back.  “It’s a bit burned, right?”

“Trust me.  I have _had_ burned cookies before,” Luisa said while chewing, “and this is not—”

“ _Stop._ ”  Rose held up a finger in front of Luisa’s lips.  “You’re the one who said it was impolite to talk with your mouth full.”

Luisa’s eyes narrowed as she finished her bite of the cookie and swallowed it.  “It’s not burnt.  Your taste sensors must be wrong.”

“ _Taste sensors_ , Dr. Alver?”

“I’m not a doctor!”

“ _Stop._ ”  One of the interns, who she hadn’t seen approaching, placed a hand on Luisa’s back from behind.  “If the two of you keep fighting like this, we’re going to have to separate you.”  His voice was dull, droning, _bored_.

Luisa flinched at his touch and moved away, and as she glanced over at Rose, she noticed the other woman gritting her teeth, her jaw clenched so tight that her muscles stood out, stark against her sculpted and normally serene (or amused!) face.  “Hands _off_ ,” Rose said through her teeth, not even glancing up to the intern who’d laid a hand on her back, as well.

“Look,” the intern started, not moving his hand, “it’s protocol to separate fighting inmates—”

“It’s not protocol to touch people who don’t want to be touched.”  Luisa gripped his wrist and moved his hand from Rose’s back.  “I don’t know _what_ protocol gives you the right to do that.  Certainly not anything in your training.  Not unless something was seriously wrong.”

The intern ripped his wrist out of Luisa’s grip.  “Don’t _touch_ me.”

“ _You_ touched _me_ —”

“—and don’t lecture me on how to do my job.”  He glared in her direction.  Then he stalked away to the other end of the room, mumbling, “ _Crazy inmates_ ,” under his breath.

Luisa started to stand to follow him, hands clenched into fists, jostling the chair as she stood, _I’m not crazy_ poised on the tip of her tongue, but Rose placed a hand on her leg, heavy enough to hold her in place.

“Don’t.  Interns like that will just throw you into isolation.  He’s not worth your time.”

“Someone needs to talk to his superiors.  They can’t treat us like that.”

“They _can_ ,” Rose said.  She patted Luisa’s leg.  “Play nice, dear.  Your insanity’s showing.”

Luisa took a deep breath – _insanity_ was so much better than _crazy_ , even if it didn’t sound like it should be – and let her anger simmer away instead of continuing to stroke it hot as a flame.  It was only then that Luisa began to notice the other people filing into the room.  It didn’t look like most of them were paying attention to her or to Rose.  They seemed to be more focused on the cookies – the _outside food_ – and Betty had taken more than a few of them when she came to sit on Luisa’s left.  Jessica gave Rose a look and then heaved a deep sigh before going to sit on Betty’s left.  Luisa raised a hand to wave at Alice as the blonde walked in, and the girl gave her a little finger waggle back before giving one to Rose as well.  Rose just smiled.

It was so much easier to calm down seeing everyone else, having something else to focus on, even if that intern was still sitting in a chair next to the door, watching the entire group.  Luisa tried not to look at him, but every time she did, she couldn’t help but feel her anger returning.  “We weren’t even fighting,” she said to Rose, finally.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rose whispered back.  “Let it go, Luisa.”

“You fuck with the nurses all the time, but you won’t fuck with _him_?”

“I didn’t say that.”  Rose turned to face Luisa then, and her blue eyes met Luisa’s without the silent nod that Luisa could easily imagine.  She gave her a weak smile, then her eyes flicked over to Betty.  “Nice to see you out of your room, Betty.”

Betty turned around Luisa and glared at Rose before giving her what Luisa interpreted as a sarcastic single blink.

Luisa let out a sigh.  “Can we _not_.  Please.  Just eat your cookies and get along and please don’t fight.  I’m on my second day of caffeine—” _and alcohol_ “—withdrawal, and I might have been nice yesterday, but today I feel like I might snap if I have to break up a fight between you two.”

Betty blinked once, much more softly, and patted Luisa’s leg with a nod.  It was comforting.  Then she turned to Jessica and nudged her, distracting her from another patient – someone Luisa hadn’t met yet – who she was discussing _something_ with.

“Is that why you brought cookies, Dr. Alver?  To calm down yonder patients so you don’t snap at them?”

Luisa turned to Rose with her eyes narrowed.  “No.  And quit calling me that.  I’m not a doctor.”

_Yet._

Rose leaned forward against the back of her chair, wrapping her arms around the top and propping her head up with them.  “Could’ve fooled me.  All of that discussion of _protocol_.”  She _smirked_ and looked so mug that Luisa wanted to—

Well, she wasn’t _sure_ exactly what she wanted to do.  Truth was, Luisa didn’t dislike Rose’s needling, but she didn’t particularly want her medical studies just brought up in casual conversation where anyone could overhear them.  But the more she told her to stop, the more it seemed like Rose was just going to keep using it – kind of like with Rafael.  The only way to get her to stop was to ignore it.  Luisa was never very good at that.

But with Rafael, with that kind of look, she’d want to thwack the back of his head – and most of the time she _would_ – not **hard**.  Mostly.  But enough for the smirk to go away.  Not that it helped.  He would just use the title or nickname or _whatever_ more than he already was until he got tired of it.

With Rose, though—

Luisa couldn’t say why, but the smirk didn’t cause that same reaction.  She wasn’t sure what the reaction _was_ exactly, but it wasn’t that.

“Do you want more, _babe_?” Luisa purred, eyes sweeping Rose’s body where it was contorted to sit backward in her chair.  “Does it make you _hot_?”

_What the fuck, Luisa.  You are in a mental hospital.  What are you doing?  Are you actually going crazy in here?!_

Rose’s eyes widened just the slightest fraction and her smirk smoothed – still _smug_ , though, but Luisa had found that she liked that look on her face.  It was alluring.  Endearing, almost.

“Really, dear?  In front of all these people?”

“Is that what you want?”

Rose’s eyes flicked to Luisa’s lips then down to her legs then back up to meet her eyes.  “What would you do,” she said softly, “if I said _yes_?”

But Luisa wasn’t given time to answer her question as the door opened again to show the woman who must have been the group therapist.  Luisa hadn’t seen her before – not that she’d met all of the other patients; whoever was sitting on Jessica’s other side, whoever it was she’d been speaking so animatedly with, was a testament of that – so she _could_ have been just another patient.  But there was something about how the woman presented herself that made her seem more…authoritative, somehow.  Not in an intimidating or negative sense, like a piano teacher with a ruler who would smack her knuckles if she got something wrong, but in the same sort of sense that a babysitter might.

Ok, maybe not a _babysitter_ , because babysitter was a triggering word, and now that Luisa’s thought about that she _really_ just wanted a drink and she couldn’t have one of those so why did she use _that_ word.

The woman – and she seemed _young_ even with all of the authority, and maybe it was in the way she held herself, too, although Luisa couldn’t place exactly why it was so – passed the cookies by without touching them, not even acknowledging them long enough to tap the table next to them, and Luisa felt her heart sink.  Which, again, was weird, because she did not know this woman, and she wasn’t _attracted_ to this woman, which was also odd, because she was blonde, and had glasses – and maybe it was the glasses.  Luisa _did_ have a thing for blondes, but most of the blondes she’d known had been opposite the stereotype –but then again, a blonde psychiatrist with glasses also went against the stereotype—

She didn’t know what it was, but Luisa instinctively wanted this woman to like her.  Not to _like her_ like her, not the way that she liked Rose, or thought she liked Rose, or _might_ like Rose, but like….

Almost like the way she’d felt when her father married the first of what would eventually become the Cotton Belles, those long-legged blondes he’d paraded through their house and hotels and apartments and _wherever_ they had lived after Rafael’s mother left them.  She’d looked up into the woman’s deep, dark eyes and thought she wanted that woman to like her.  It wasn’t a thought she had for any of the other vapid women her father married after the first one, and it had very quickly evaporated when it came to _her_ , too, but at that first moment, that first meeting?  She’d wanted her to like her.

She’d also wanted to do girly stuff with her, too.  Make-up and fancy clothes and dress up parties and maybe even talking about boys (because this was before she knew that she was _not_ into boys, thank you very much).  But that wasn’t a feeling she had with the blonde psychiatrist in front of her.

The blonde sat down on the chair in the front center, almost exactly opposite where Luisa sat – but, in truth, it was opposite _Rose’s_ chair – and crossed one long leg over the other in a move that Luisa knew far too well, given that it was the same exact move she’d made when she sat down next to Rose earlier.  The woman leaned forward, propping one elbow on her knee, and then rested her chin in her hand.  Her blue eyes met Luisa’s, and she gave her a wink.  “It’s good to see all of you here today.” Her voice was smooth and charming, and she grinned as she spoke.  “It looks like we have a new friend with us.  Why don’t we introduce ourselves, and then we can get started?”

Luisa opened her mouth to speak, only for the other woman to continue.  “I’m Dr. Harleen Quinzel, and we’ll” her grin deepened and she tapped the empty chair to her left – and it was only then that Luisa realized that the chairs on either side of Dr. Quinzel were empty, just as she believed they would be on either side of Rose, had she not sat next to her – then tapped it a second time, “go _this way_ when we introduce ourselves.”  Her eyes finally left Luisa’s face and turned to the person sitting closest to her on the left – **Alice**.  Her lips curved into a gentle, understanding smile.  “Do you have your page ready, Alice?”

Alice nodded and held her book up, the book open to what looked like the third or fourth page, and Luisa wondered if she’d been given a new book when she was first interred at Belle Reve.  She couldn’t read the tiny writing at the top of the page, but Alice’s name was written large enough that she could see it even from where _she_ was.  She guessed, from what she knew of Alice, that if she were close enough, the entire page would read _My name is Alice_.

There was a girl she hadn’t met before sitting next to Alice, who had her hands clasped together in her lap.  She looked up and around at everyone with a bright grin.  “My name’s Finley!  I’ve been here a few months now, and I—”  Finley stopped all of a sudden and looked to Dr. Quinzel with a much more panicked grin.  “Sorry.  Just names, right?”

“Just names this time, Finley, but thank you for being prepared.”

Finley’s grin returned and she brightened as the doctor thanked her.  Then she turned to her left.

Another girl sat there, this one with black hair, black clothes, black – _everything_ , if Luisa was seeing her right.  Her eyes shifted around the room once, barely resting on Luisa before moving back around the others.  “Raven.”

There was an empty chare next to her, and then in the chair next to Rose, which had only moments ago been empty—

“Carla,” the redhead said, holding her hand up and waving her fingers at the room in the few seconds pause before Rose could speak.  No one acknowledged her, but Luisa’s eyes widened and she took a deep breath to settle herself.

“I’m Rose—”

“Your name is _Clara_ ,” one of the other patients said, but Luisa wasn’t paying attention to _who_ so much as she was still staring around Rose at where Clara still sat.

“Now, now, let her introduce herself as she likes,” Dr. Quinzel said, waving one hand, and it was in that brief moment that Rose gave her a tight-lipped smile and a grimace of an expression before the doctor turned to Luisa.  “And you are?”

Luisa had missed most of this, too focused on Carla, who had gone from looking at her to focusing on her hands where they lay in her lap, forefinger rubbing along her thumbnail.  It took a little bit to realize that Dr. Quinzel had been speaking to her, that they were waiting on her, and even the silence wasn’t what alerted her, instead a gentle nudge from Rose bringing her back to attention.  Then Luisa turned and she focused on Dr. Quinzel, her eyes wide.  “Sorry, so sorry, I’m Luisa.  Luisa Alver.  You don’t need the last name.  I’m just Luisa.”

“It’s nice to meet you, just Luisa,” the doctor repeated, and her gaze flicked over to where Carla was seated before returning to Luisa.

For the briefest of moments, Luisa was convinced that the blonde doctor could see Carla, too.

Then her gaze returned to Luisa.  She nodded once and turned to Betty.  “Do you have your name with you today, Betty?”

Betty’s eyes widened, and then she grinned, body shaking as if she were laughing, before she shook her head a few times.

“ _Betty_.”

“It’s fine, Dr. Quinzel—”

“You can call me Harleen.”

Luisa’s eyes narrowed.  What _was_ it with these therapists and wanting to be known by their first name?  With Alana, it worked, but there was something about this other, younger, doctor that made it seem weird.  _Wrong_ , almost.  And what kind of name was _Harleen_ anyway?  “—Dr. Quinzel, she’s my roommate.  I know who Betty is.”

She didn’t even notice that her ignorance of Dr. Quinzel’s name preference was a completely different judgment call than the one she not only consistently gave to Rose but also expected others to make.

“Of course, Luisa, but maybe you aren’t the only new face in the room.”

Luisa blinked and her eyes immediately flicked to the seat next to Rose where Carla sat then back to Dr. Quinzel.  “I’m not?”

“You _are_ ,” the blonde doctor admitted, “but you might _not_ be.  Don’t speak for someone else.”

“But there…there _isn’t_ anyone else.”

“ _I’m Jessica_ ,” the other redhead interjected before the conversation could continue.  She patted Betty’s knee a couple of times, “and I’ll make sure that she remembers her name for group tomorrow.”

Dr. Quinzel’s eyes flicked unblinkingly to Jessica as she gave the woman her full focus, but Luisa’s eyes moved to Rose again.  _What is going on?_ she mouthed as soon as she caught Rose’s eye, but Rose just lifted her brows once before tilting her head back in Dr. Quinzel’s direction.  Luisa’s gaze returned to the doctor, who was now watching the entire group.  Unfortunately, Luisa had missed the name of whoever was sitting beside Jessica, but if this _name_ thin was an everyday occurrence, then she could just pick up on it tomorrow.

“Now that we all know each other,” Dr. Quinzel said with a wink, “why don’t we get to what’s _really_ bothering you today?”

“Clara changed her name,” Jessica said, immediately.  “Again.”

“And Jessica refuses to acknowledge my name,” Rose responded, just as quickly.  “Again.”

“Maybe if you would stick with one name,” Jessica continued, refusing to even look at Rose, instead focusing forward on Dr. Quinzel, “I would acknowledge the change, but until you find a permanent one, what’s the point?”

Rose glanced at her fingernails, still painted a bright, shiny red.  “Maybe I’m trying them out until I find the permanent one.”

“Well, when you find _that one_ , tell me.”

Rose began to pick at her nails.  “How am I supposed to know what name fits until I try it on?  And if you keep calling me by the wrong name, how will I know if the new name fits or not?  All I’ll know is that you’re still calling me by the one that _doesn’t_ fit.”

Jessica’s eyes narrowed.  “We have this conversation _every_ time you change your name, Clara—”

“ _Rose._ ”

And this time Luisa repeated the woman’s name at the same time Rose said it.  Her gaze had trained on her hands where they rested atop her knee – not wanting to look up and watch the blonde doctor or to keep glancing over to where Carla sat beside Rose – but as she repeated the woman’s name, she gave a quick glance up and met Rose’s eyes again.

Rose looked **smug**.

“— _whatever your name is_ ,” Jessica continued with gritted teeth, “and it hasn’t changed my mind yet.”

“That’s because it has nothing to do with my _name_ , and you _know_ it.”  Rose glanced up, away from Luisa’s gaze, and Luisa followed her stare to Jessica, who still hadn’t looked back.  “But that’s a little _personal_ for group, don’t you think?”

There was a loud knocking noise, and Luisa jumped in her seat.  She looked over to Alice, who was rapping her knuckles against the seat of her chair.  She held up her book and pointed to it.  Luisa looked close and squinted, but she couldn’t read what it said no matter how hard she tried.  She was too far away.

Dr. Quinzel reached over – and it was then that Luisa noted the alternating black and red fingernail polish on her nails with diamonds of the other color etched into them – and slowly took Alice’s book so that she could read what it said.  “That’s a good point, Alice,” she said as she passed the book back.  “It _shouldn’t_ matter how often Rose,” and here her tone lifted with a slight question to it, and she glanced to Rose for the answering nod, “changes her name.  We should respect her choices until she figures it out.”

Then the doctor raised a finger.  “As for _the other thing_ , girls, it isn’t fair to bring something up in group that you won’t talk about in group.  It’s not fair to the other patients.  You know that.”

“Then maybe Jessica should stop bringing up whatever her issue is with my name change so that _I_ can stop bringing up _the other thing_.”

“I assure you,” Jessica said, “my issues with your name change are _only_ for your name change.”

“Oh?”  Rose grinned then, like a cat with a mouse (or a rabbit).  “What _deep-seated issues_ do you have with my name change?”

It was then that Jessica finally turned away from Dr. Quinzel and faced Rose, her lips pressed into a tight, but not thin, line.  “You obviously have issues with your identity, and it shouldn’t be my job to deal with them.”

“We’re in a mental institution,” Rose said, eyebrows raised with a large, exaggerated nod.  “You don’t really have a choice.  And if I have to deal with all of the scratching noises _your_ rabbits make—”

“Don’t bring Roger into this.”

Rose leaned back, arms stretched with her palms out.  “You have a problem with my name; I have a problem with your noisy rabbits.  They keep scritching and scratching at all hours and I can hear them when I’m trying to sleep, just that _scritch scritch scritch scritch_ so loud that it’s in my room and it feels like it’s in my ears and _I just want to make it stop_ but I can’t because they’re _your_ rabbits—”

“I don’t see what this has to do with my problem with your name change.”

“It doesn’t.  It’s a separate problem.”

“I think what Rose is trying to say,” Dr. Quinzel said, her voice calm and soothing enough to draw attention back to herself and immediately calm the room, “is that you both have problems with each other that are irreconcilable.  That means that neither one of you is going to change simply because it bothers the other.”

Jessica’s eyes narrowed.  “You know she just changes her name to—”

“—fuck with you?” Rose completed.  Her eyes widened, and her face took on a pained expression.  “Now _why_ would I _ever_ do something like _that_ , Jessica?  Weren’t _you_ the one who suggested that my constant name changes had to do with an identity disorder?  And yet here you are suggesting that I just do it for…for what?  For attention?  To make _you_ mad?”  Rose shook her head.  “That _hurts_ , Jessica.  I’m _wounded_.”

Luisa knew, in that moment, that Rose was lying.  First of all, Rose _told_ her that changing her name had nothing to do with her mental illness.  Rose had admitted that she liked to play with the nurses, although not in so many words, so it stood to reason that she like to play with the other residents as well.  And her tone now, her mannerisms, they were so obviously _faked_ , even to her!

And yet she found herself _admiring_ them.

Jessica might have been _right_ , but _Rose_ was **winning**.

“Anyone else?” Dr. Quinzel asked, glancing around the room.  When there was no immediate response, the blonde looked directly at Luisa.  “If you are having any problem with the other residents, now is the time to bring that up.  The two of you can talk it out, and I can help mediate.  That way, if anyone else is having the same problem with either of you, we can try and find something that appeases everyone.”

 _Or maybe the problem is with you_ , Dr. Quinzel didn’t say but Luisa implicitly understood.

Luisa took a deep breath and shook her head once.  No, no, she didn’t have a problem with _anyone_ right now.  Alice had seemed perfectly nice during their conversation earlier, _normal_ if not for the whole book thing.  She hadn’t really spent much time with Raven yet, but she didn’t think she’d have any trouble with her.  And she still didn’t know the name of the woman sitting on Jessica’s other side.  If she had trouble with _anyone_ , it was with Jessica, but that was more a general _uneasiness_ than it was a true _problem_.  There wasn’t really anything _wrong_ with how Jessica was acting, and if Rose had been here a long time, and if Jessica and Betty had been here a long time, then there was probably some sort of—

Well.  Whatever _the other thing_ was.

But she wasn’t going to ask about that.

Yet.

With no one else opening up another conversation, Dr. Quinzel leaned back in her chair.  “Well, then I guess group therapy is done for the day.  Feel free to take another cookie or two on your way out.  They’re _really_ good.”  Then she gestured with one hand and the intern opened the doors so that they could leave if they wanted.

Rose nudged Luisa with one elbow and then unwrapped herself from her seat.  “C’mon,” she said.  “Let’s get out of here.”

They left the room together, Luisa following Rose out with only a wary glance at Dr. Quinzel as she passed.  As soon as they were out of the room, she moved closer to Rose, brushing her fingers against the other woman’s.  “Where to?”

Rose took Luisa’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.  Then she bent close to her and whispered, “I think it’s time someone shows you around a bit, don’t you?”

Luisa turned to face her so quickly that their lips almost brushed against each other and then turned away as they continued to walk down the hallway.  “Like the snack machine?” she asked, trying not to laugh.  Then she glanced to Rose with a twinkle in her eyes.  “Or your room?”

“Mmmmmm.  I think it’s a _little early_ to be taking you back to my room,” Rose said with her lips curved in the way she showed amusement without laughing, “but maybe when we’re done, if you’re lucky.”

“Well, then, I guess I just hope I’ll get lucky.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

But Rose squeezed her hand again, and Luisa couldn’t help but feel a little bit warmer.  “Is _every_ group session like that?” she couldn’t help but ask.  “It’s so—”

“ _Petty?_ ” Rose completed as Luisa struggled to find the proper word for the session.  She nodded once.  “Sometimes it’s better.”

“Really?”

“No.”  Rose shook her head.  “Group is a complete waste of time, if you ask me.  If I had a choice, I wouldn’t go at all.”

“But they don’t really _give_ you a choice, do they?”

Rose shook her head again.  She stopped in front of what looked to be a vending machine.  “Voila!  Snacks.”

“ _Snacks._ ”  Luisa couldn’t help the awe and wonder coming through her lips as she saw the machine.  She dropped Rose’s hand and placed both of hers on the vending machine’s glass, staring at everything inside.  There wasn’t _a lot_ , but there was candy, chips, poptarts, and—

“Oh my goodness.”  Luisa knelt on the floor so that she could be on eye level with them.  “Are those powdered donuts?”

Rose grinned.  “All those sugar cookies and all that cookie dough, and you want powdered donuts?”

“Of course!”  Luisa looked back at Rose with a shocked expression.  “How can you even _say_ something like that?  There’s _always_ room for powdered donuts.  They’re the best sugary snack in all the world.”  She started digging through her pockets for change.  “I practically _live_ on them back in the dorms.  They’re good for breakfast, lunch, dinner,” but her voice faded as she couldn’t find any change in her pockets, and she scowled, leaning back on her knees and just staring at them.  “I don’t know if I even _have_ change in my room.”

“Here.”

Rose popped in a few coins, pressed a couple of buttons, and a package of donuts slipped to the bottom of the machine.  Luisa grabbed the package out as quickly as she could and she stood with them, eyes wide, a bright smile plastered across her face.  She looked back at Rose.  “What are these for?”

“Making it through your first day of group.”  Rose tapped the package of donuts. “And you’re going to split them with me.”

“No, I’m not.  Get your own.  These are _mine_.”

“Luisa.”

But Luisa was already running down the hallway back to her room, holding the donuts to her chest like a prize.  She slammed her door shut, collapsed backwards on her bed, and held the package up in the air, just staring at them.  Then she laughed.

Okay, so she was acting a little bit childish.  But she was in a mental institution.  Wasn’t that allowed?

It was only as she started munching on her first donut that she realized that Dr. Quinzel had commented on the quality of her cookies without even eating one of them or acknowledging them when she came in in the slightest.  Her brows furrowed.  Rose was right.  Group therapy _was_ nuts.  But if she got powdered donuts as a reward every time she went, she could sit through it.

Even if she _didn’t_ want to share.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait between the last chapter and this one! I was really struggling with the group therapy bit - I felt like I needed to add more characters and didn't have a good idea of them, but once I got to writing it, the chapter kind of fell together fairly well!
> 
> Also this chapter is longer. So like...thanks for the wait have a longer chapter?
> 
> (No, seriously, thank you for your patience and encouragement on this one. I really appreciate it.)


	9. Chapter 9

Before Luisa knew it, a week had passed.  Then two.  As she’d thought before, the days at Belle Reve ran into each other so much that she couldn’t always tell one day from another, only that it was a new day.  Some were different because she saw Dr. Bloom, but group therapy continued on as normal, or what passed for normal around there.  She still didn’t enjoy it, but she _did_ enjoy the daily visits to the vending machine and sharing a package of powdered donuts with Rose on the minefield couch after each session.

Luisa still hadn’t found out what Rose’s diagnosis was, and after a while, she stopped bring it up.  It wasn’t as though she _needed_ to know.  Rose was a friend, and nothing beyond that really mattered.  Jessica hadn’t stopped giving her dark looks whenever she saw Luisa spending time with her, but for the most part she’d stopped trying to convince Luisa to change her mind.  Luisa suspected this was mostly Betty’s doing, as over the past weeks Betty had stopped giving Rose the same dark looks that her friend did.  Maybe Rose had typically finished her evil plans with people within their first two weeks there.

Maybe she didn’t have a plan at all.

Whatever the case, Luisa didn’t think about it.  She found it was a lot easier that way.  In fact, she quite liked being able to spend time with Rose without having to worry about whether the other woman was fucking with her or not.  It certainly put the rest of the _too much_ thinking she sometimes did at the institution in perspective.

And the _too much thinking_ hadn’t really gone away.  At this point, Luisa wasn’t sure it ever would.  Carla hadn’t disappeared yet – maybe it was too much to hope that the woman she hallucinated would leave within two weeks, given that she’d been around for twenty-two years – but the sessions with Dr. Bloom felt like they helped.  Still – if some medications could take three or more weeks to get their full effectiveness, maybe it was weird for her to expect anything faster at Belle Reve.

The longer she was there, the less expectations Luisa held – both for her therapist, for the other residents, and for herself.

And yet somehow Rose seemed to burst through what little expectations she had left.

* * *

 

“I’m getting tired of being here,” the redhead said as she stretched out on the couch, yawning as though to punctuate her words.  Her arms spread across the back of the couch, and she patted the spot next to her as she moved over to one end.

It’s been two weeks, and Luisa still hadn’t learned all the ins and outs of the minefield couch with its springs.  She’d gotten better – she’d _had_ to get better because Rose sat on the couch near constantly, and after one too many times of sitting in the wrong spot or even sitting in the _right_ spot but _hitting_ the wrong spot _when she got up_ , Luisa’d slowly but surely learned a few safe spots.  It was into one of these that she carefully slid now, pulling her legs up under her, still humming with pride that she could find a spot on her own without Rose needing to move her into one.

That said, she _did_ miss the touch of Rose’s hands on her hips as she situated her into a better position on the couch.  It was almost like she was getting punished for learning.

“Well, then get better faster,” Luisa replied, sticking her tongue out at the other woman.  “Then you can leave and do whatever you want.”

Luisa’d heard that the nurses would take the residents out every now and again to bookshops or ice cream parlors – just walk them down to main street, all of them who were allowed out together with many, _many_ nurses – but the weather wasn’t warm enough just yet for such an outing.  It was still that hazy area between winter and spring, where the ice was just beginning to thaw and the snow to melt but not quite to the days were the skies would be anything but overcast and pouring down rain.  She expected it would be after that – when the days were sunny and the flowers were just beginning to bloom – that the nurses would take them out, but that was a long way away.

“I think it’s time for a _jail break_.”  Rose’s voice lowered to a hush, and she glanced conspiratorially to Luisa.  Her eyes flicked over her – and Luisa was growing used to this as well, although it still gave her an inner warmth that she couldn’t quite name – and one edge of her lips curved up in mischief.  “You could come with me, if you want.”

Luisa remembered that someone had mentioned earlier that Rose would sometimes escape from Belle Reve – Rose herself had said it, if she remembered correctly – but she’d thought that to just be an exaggeration given that it hadn’t come up again during the time she’d been here.  She leaned forward on her knees only to wince as she hit one of the bad spots she hadn’t yet mapped out.  “You’re really going to get out?”

“Yeah.”  Rose’s expression smoothed into something much more smug.  “It’s not like it’s hard.”

Luisa hadn’t really considered running away from Belle Reve.  She didn’t really hate it here yet, although she could see how the schedule and monotony could get quite boring, especially for Rose who was still consistently brought up during group therapy sessions as a source of problems with the other residents, even when, as far as Luisa could see, she hadn’t been doing anything at all.

“But you’re still here.”

“The police always catch me eventually,” Rose said, heaving a huge sigh.  “Besides, I _have_ to come back.  Wouldn’t want to leave without finishing my therapy and getting better, would I?”  But she let out a low chuckle, and her jaw tightened, eye shifting elsewhere.

“So they don’t…they don’t kick you out of the program for running away?”

Rose shook her head.  “No.  I’ve never been gone long enough for that.  I think you have…a week or two before they officially kick you out.  It’s less than when you leave to visit family over the holidays, if they allow you to do that.”

Luisa hadn’t considered _that_ either.  Easter was coming up, and even though her family wasn’t particularly religious, it was still a family holiday.  She doubted her father or Rafael would check her out for that, though.  Her father would be too worried that taking her out before Dr. Bloom released her would lead to a relapse (or worse), and Rafael….

Rafael was complicated.

Her lips pressed together, and she shook her head once.  She didn’t want to think about Rafael.

Luisa shook with surprise as Rose placed one of her hands on Luisa’s own, stretching across the rocky area of the couch to provide the single, comforting touch.  “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she lied.

“Do you need me to ground you again?”

“No.”

This, too, had continued throughout the past weeks, although Luisa had yet to wake up in the late hours of the night or the early hours of the morning and pound her way barefoot in pajamas to Rose’s room, desperate to be reminded of what was real.  There were only moments, very small ones, every now and again, and when she’d started to slip, almost as though she knew beforehand, there Rose was – hand on her hand, hand on her cheek, _so close_ – close so that Luisa could focus on her and what she knew was real.  But she didn’t feel like she was slipping now.  She might not really be okay, but she wasn’t _that_ kind of _not okay_.

“Do you want to come with me?” Rose asked again, her voice just as soft.

Luisa glanced up, meeting Rose’s bright blue eyes, and she searched them for a sign of some sort of joke or prank.  “You want me to leave Belle Reve?  With you?”

“Yeah.”  Rose gave her hands a gentle squeeze.  “If you want.”

And the more Luisa searched for some sort of indication that Rose was playing with her, the more she was convinced that the other woman wasn’t.  “Where would we go?” she asked, her voice just as soft as Rose’s was, softer even.  “Do you go to the same places every time, or would you take me somewhere else, or…?”  Her voice dropped off.

Rose turned one of Luisa’s hands over and began to trace circles on the soft skin of her palm.  “I thought,” and her eyes flicked up briefly then dropped back down to the intricate design she was making, “we could decide that together.  If there was somewhere _you_ wanted to go, since it’d be your first time out, we could make a special trip.”

“If there was something… _I_ wanted to show _you_?”

“Yes.”

Luisa nodded once.  It didn’t _seem_ like a bad plan, if it was all real, if everything Rose was telling her was true.  She didn’t have any real reason to doubt her.  Rose had been nothing but kind and patient with her the entire time she’d been in Belle Reve so far, despite what Jessica suggested and despite knowing that she’d also had a falling out with Alice, even though she still didn’t know what had happened there either.

“And,” Rose continued after a brief pause, “if we weren’t _here_ , then we could do… _other_ things.”

Luisa looked up sharply.

“Other things?  What sort of…other…things?”

Luisa watched as Rose’s eyes drifted to her lips, froze as Rose bit her own lower lip, then took a deep breath as Rose’s gaze moved lower.  She kept her eyes on Rose’s lips as they parted for her to say, finally, an echo of her earlier words but softer, “ _Other_ things.”  Rose’s eyes returned to Luisa’s eyes, and Luisa swallowed once, hard, not that it helped.

Luisa’s tongue flicked across her lips once.  “I’d…I’d like that.  I’d like that a lot.”

“So you’ll come?”

“Uh.”  Luisa swallowed again past the lump in her throat.  “Can…can I think about it?  Do you need a decision right now?”

“No,” Rose said, but her disappointment was apparent in her voice.  “I can wait a few days.”  She leaned back on the couch, removing her hand from Luisa’s.  “I have to plan everything out anyway.”  Her gaze turned to the rest of the room, completely away, as though searching to make sure no one was around eavesdropping on them.  “But I want to be out of here by Saturday.”

“Saturday,” Luisa echoed, and she nodded her head once, gaze dropping to her palms, where Rose had been tracing designs.  She could still feel the woman’s soft touch on her skin, and she wondered….  “I can….  I’ll have a decision for you before then.”

“And Luisa?” Rose said, voice a little more firm than before.

“Hm?”  Luisa looked up, pulled out of her fantasies.

“Don’t tell anyone.”

* * *

 

Luisa sat on her bed waiting for one of the nurses.  Her appointments with Dr. Bloom had yet to find a firm, consistent schedule, but she was okay with that.  It gave some variation to the day-to-day monotony of Belle Reve and still ended with her getting lunch outside of the institution every now and again, which was definitely a plus.  Belle Reve may not have _horrible_ food, but the craving for something else hadn’t decreased the longer she’d been there, even with the daily visits to the vending machine.  Maybe her lunches on the outside were something intentional on the part of the nurses – or, even more likely, Alana herself – to make sure that she was given some small taste of the real world outside to better handle the adjustment of life at Belle Reve.  Maybe not.  Who knew what her therapist was thinking?

Her fingers drummed on her comforter.  She hadn’t started counting the flowers yet or making statistics for them the same way she’d counted the ceiling tiles on her first day here, but every now and again she considered it.  Right now, her knees were pulled up underneath her; it was her _thinking_ position.  She couldn’t help but be preoccupied with what Rose had proposed earlier that week, and when it came to secrets?  Well, she wasn’t very good at keeping them.

Luisa tugged her lower lip between her teeth as she sat and thought, and while she waited, Betty returned to their room with Jessica in tow.

“All I’m saying is that I’m not comfortable with—”

Jessica’s voice dropped off as she noticed Luisa sitting in the room.  Her arms crossed as her eyes examined her, though it wasn’t an upset stance.  Luisa felt like a specimen on display in one of her medical classes, a cadaver with its muscles and bones exposed.  But Jessica’s gaze was softer than the clinical examination of a student such as herself or one of her med. school friends, and her expression increasingly became one of concern as she took in Luisa’s posture.  “What did she do, Luisa?”

“Nothing.”

This, of course, was the worst part.  Luisa couldn’t keep from feeling defensive over Rose, couldn’t help but feel annoyed that Jessica’s first assumption was still that _Rose_ had done something to her and not that something else might be affecting her.  They were in a mental institution.  _She_ was in a mental institution.  After everything, wouldn’t it be easier to assume that she was having a problem related to her illness or some minor relapse?  But no, Jessica’s mind jumped to _Rose_ , and as a result, Luisa’s tone was instantly more aggravated.

“She hasn’t done anything the entire time I’ve been here.  I don’t know why you still have it out for her.”  Luisa shifted her legs underneath her in a better, more comfortable position, and leaned back against her headboard.

“I’m sorry,” Jessica said, and it wasn’t the first time she’d murmured the words in relation to her judgment, “but Clara and I—”

“Rose.”

“Rose, of course.”  Jessica’s gaze moved away, and she sat on the edge of Luisa’s bed instead of Betty’s, one long leg crossed over the other.  She glanced to Betty, who waved her off.  Even _she_ was growing tired of the conversation, and instead of joining in, she curled up on her side facing away from them and pulled her covers up over her head.  Jessica sighed and turned back to Luisa.  “We have a long history.”

“People change.   _Especially_ in here.”

“Maybe.”  Then Jessica patted the bed with one hand, the same way Rose did when she encouraged Luisa to sit with her, but Luisa didn’t move closer.  “But you look as though something is wrong, and if you aren’t talking it over with her—”  Jessica shook her head.  “It’s easy to jump to conclusions.”

“Rabbit hop.”

Jessica’s eyes narrowed, and her voice was thin.  “Yes, I suppose.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Luisa reiterated, “and Rose hasn’t done anything.”

“Then why are you sitting in here looking as though something _is_ wrong?”

“That’s just my face,” Luisa lied.  Even if Rose hadn’t told her to _not tell anyone_ , she knew better than to bring up the idea of escaping with Jessica.  She already knew what the other woman would say: **don’t**.  Her reasons might be more specific than that, but Luisa couldn’t help but think that they would be rooted in whatever this feud was she had with Rose and not whether or not it would actually be a good idea for _her personally_.

Jessica sighed again.  “I know when I’m not wanted.”  Instead of continuing the conversation, she stood and moved away, patting Betty’s legs twice.  “I’ll come back to get you before dinner.”

Betty reached out from under the covers, took Jessica’s hand, and squeezed it once.  Only when the door was shut and her friend was gone did she turn over in her bed to face Luisa.  She didn’t say anything, but her eyes were wide with curiosity.

“No, I can’t tell you either,” Luisa said, laughing.  Then she paused, glancing to the door, and reconsidered.  “Actually, you know what, _you_ won’t tell anyone, so I can tell you.”

Betty nodded eagerly.  She grinned as she propped herself up on one elbow, eager to listen.

“Rose asked me to go out with he.”

Betty’s eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open.

“No, no, no, not like that!”  Luisa said, her eyes widening much further to mimic Betty’s.  “Or, at least, I don’t think it’s like that.”  Even if Rose _had_ suggested that they could do _other things_ while they were out – the consideration of which made her shift positions on her bed, trying to find a more comfortable way to sit.  “But she said…she said she’s going to escape for a little while and that I could join her.”  Her gaze dropped to her fingers, which fiddled together in her lap.  “She said we’d come back and that as long as we weren’t gone _too_ long, it wouldn’t have any terribly negative consequences.”  Her eyes lifted to meet Betty’s.  “Like being kicked out.”

Betty nodded once.  Her mouth opened as though miming something, and then she shook her head.

“Is she right?” Luisa asked first.  “Could we leave and come back and still be able to stay here?”

Betty pressed her lips together then blinked once, followed by one firm nod.

Well, that settled that!  Suddenly, Luisa felt a lot better about the entire thing, even if it did still feel a little odd.  She reached over and placed her hand on one of Betty’s, her face in an expression of earnestness.  “Do you think I should go with her?”

This time, Betty paused for a moment, considering.  Her head tilted to one side.  Her mouth opened and shut.  Then she blinked twice.

“Why?” Luisa asked immediately, without thinking.  Then she raised one hand, waving it off.  “No, don’t answer that, you can’t answer that, um.”  Her lips pressed together.  It was like playing forty questions with Betty sometimes, but in the past two weeks, she’d gotten a lot better at it.  “Do you think it’s a trap?”

Betty blinked twice.

“Ok.”  Luisa considered this for a moment.  “Do you think she’s actually asking me out?  Like…on a date?”

Even without hearing about Rose’s proposition of _other things_ , Betty nodded a couple of times as a reply instead of blinking.  She smiled, but it was a fond expression.  Then she patted Luisa’s hand once.

“But…but you think I shouldn’t go?” Luisa said, although the question sounded like more of a statement, albeit a confused one.

Betty blinked twice again.

“Has she taken anyone else out with her before?”

Betty hesitated.  Her lips pressed together, and her gaze shifted.  Then she nodded once, a small nod, as though she were ashamed to be saying it.

“Was it a date?”

 _No, no, no_ , Betty shook her head rapidly, dark crinkled hair flitting about her face.  _No, no, no._

 _Ok_ , Luisa thought, taking a deep breath.  That, at least, was something.  She felt a little better about that.  “Was it Alice?”

Betty blinked twice then raised an eyebrow skeptically.

Luisa laughed.   “Ok, ok, not Alice.  She’d be too scared to go, wouldn’t she?”  She shook her head.  There was quiet for a moment as she considered the revelation.  “But it’s someone who’s still here, right?”

Betty blinked once.

“Was it Jessica?”

Betty hesitated before blinking once, then tapped Luisa’s hand with wide eyes as though to say, _Don’t tell her I told you!_

Luisa nodded in understanding.  “I won’t tell her.  Don’t worry.”  This was a different sort of secret, even if she _was_ bad at keeping them.  “Is…,” Luisa started to say, pursing her lips, “is this why Jessica hates her?”

Betty blinked once then raised her hand, giving a wibbly-wobbly motion.  So _kind of_ and _yes_.

Luisa leaned back on her bed again, and there was a long silence before she asked, finally, “Are you afraid that if I go with Rose what happened to Jessica will happen to me?”

Betty shook her head immediately, although not as insistently as she had earlier.

At that point, Luisa was stumped.  She wasn’t sure what question to ask next.  It wasn’t that she couldn’t think of any, but that all of her questions were now much more complicated than a simple _yes_ or _no_.  She wanted to know what had happened when Jessica went with Rose and why Betty wasn’t afraid that it would happen with her.  She wanted to know what Betty thought would happen to her and _why_ Betty thought she shouldn’t o.  She wanted to know how many times Rose had escaped over her time here.

But none of these were questions she could ask Betty and get a good answer.

Luisa sighed.  “Should I ask Jessica about it?”

And, despite her fervent hope that Betty would say _yes_ , Betty shook her head _no_.  That was even worse.  Now she wanted to know _why_ she shouldn’t bring it up with Jessica, especially since she knew it would be….  It would maybe explain things.  But maybe it was one of those conversations that would ruin everything.  Maybe there was a reason Jessica hadn’t brought up what had happened, why even _Rose_ hadn’t explained it.  Whatever it was, she guessed it was the thing they refused to bring up in group, so it had to be a big deal – it had to be.

Now she was even _more_ curious, but there was no way she knew of to satiate that curiosity, which was the _worst_ state of being.

Luisa sighed again, and Betty patted her hand once more.  When she looked up, her roommate was staring at her with wide eyes but a fond smile.  “Thanks, Betty,” Lusia said.  “I know you’re trying to help, but now I’m even more confused than I was before.  I think….”  She looked away, back down at her hands.  “I think I’m just going to have to think this one over myself, okay?”

Betty blinked once and patted Luisa’s hand again.  It wasn’t long before she rolled back over on her bed, covering her head with her covers again as though to give Luisa complete privacy.  That was one of the good things about Betty; she was very accommodating.

Then Luisa leaned back against her headboard again.  After a few minutes, she crawled beneath her covers, even though she was still fully dressed and waiting on one of the nurses to get her.  Right now, she just wanted to take a nap.  Maybe the rest would clear her mind and make it easier for her to decide.  Maybe she’d be able to have an answer one way or the other when she woke up, or at least a better idea of what the answer _should_ be.

She closed her eyes and briefly an image of what the _other things_ Rose suggested rose to her mind.  That…that certainly did _not_ help.  Not at all.

Then a knock came at her door, and she sat up again.  One of the nurses pushed the door open and peeked her head into the room.  “Luisa?  It’s time for your appointment with Dr. Bloom.”

“Yeah, ok.”  Luisa smiled – she _always_ smiled at the nurses and interns if she could help it because she knew what it was to be in that position.  She shoved her feet back into her shoes and was ready immediately.  Then she left without looking back.

* * *

 

It was easier, having broken her promise to Rose once, to do so again.

“How often,” Luisa began, her hands wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate, sitting comfortably on her little therapist’s sofa with Applesauce, the dog, curled right on a threadbare pillow beside her, “do patients escape from Belle Reve?”  Her eyes were focused on the mug in her hands, staring into the dark liquid.  There weren’t as many marshmallows hiding in its depths as the first time; Alana had noticed that her once full bag of tiny marshmallows had emptied to halfway after _one_ uncontrolled session, and after that, she’d been more than a little bit careful about how many Luisa could have with any given drink.

Because her eyes were down, focused away from her therapist, Luisa couldn’t see how Alana’s eyes first widened and then narrowed, couldn’t see the tightening of her sharp little jaw.  “Not very often,” she said, and her voice was much more controlled than her expressions had been.  “We have one persistent escapee, but we always bring her back.”

“What happens,” Luisa continued, still looking down into her mug, “when you bring her back?”

“It depends on how long she’s been gone,” Alana admitted, her expression softening with her voice.  “Solitary, loss of certain freedoms—”

Luisa looked up sharply at that last one. “Freedoms?” she interrupted.  “We have freedoms?”

“Visitors, going on excursions—” Alana paused.  “I know it’s been too cold and rainy recently for them to have taken you anywhere yet, but one of the punishments can be—”

“They’d keep me from having visitors?”

Luisa caught it as soon as she said it, and her eyes widened.  She shifted the mug to one hand and waved the other one as though it would take back what she’d said.  “Not _me_ , I mean, _I’m_ not planning on going anywhere, and it’s not like I’ve _had_ visitors so even if I _did_ go somewhere, which I wouldn’t, it’s not like it would have a real effect because my family’s not—”

It was two weeks.  Luisa really hadn’t expected her father to visit very often, if at all.  She knew how he felt about mental institutions, knew the effect that being here would have on him, even if it was for her and even if she was doing better.  That one wasn’t personal.  Rafael, however….

Well.

Luisa didn’t know how to feel about _his_ not having visited.  He’d only just turned twenty-one, and she was worried that he was going out the way _she’d_ been when _she_ was twenty-one – the way she went out now, in fact, when she was still able to be out and about, especially with her med. school friends.  And it wasn’t like she could stop him if that was what he was doing.  But she was worried about him.  She should be able to _be_ there for him, and while she was in here taking care of herself, he was…alone.  Because their father certainly didn’t show any signs of caring.  At least not in a way Rafael would understand.

“Are you planning to run away, Luisa?”

“No,” she said immediately, with a shake of her head.  “No, no, I’m not planning anything.  I’m….  I’m considering my options.”

“So you’re _thinking_ about running away.”

“Not _permanently_.”  Luisa pressed her lips together.  She moved her mug to the coffee table so that she could clasp her hands together, fingers fidgeting even while entangled with each other.  “Like you said, you always catch her, so you’d catch _me_ if _I_ went out, and I don’t want to leave forever because I want to keep making progress and I don’t want to _not_ make progress and it’d be nice if—”

“Luisa.”  Alana reached over and placed a hand on Luisa’s, and when Luisa looked up, she found that her little doctor with the ice blue eyes was smiling at her in a way she barely remembered her own mother doing, once, a long, long time ago.  “It’s okay to feel like you want to leave.  Belle Reve in the winter feels kind of like a cage, and you’ve only been here a few weeks.  You’re stir crazy.  I understand that.”

“It’s not even that,” Luisa admitted, and she looked out the large windows that formed Alana’s back wall.  The trees outside were just beginning to have leaves growing on their naked branches again, and they dripped from the recent rain.  “She just…she asked me to go with her, and I’d…I’d really like to go with her.  See what she’s like _out_ of Belle Reve, you know?  Because we’re all different in Belle Reve.”

“Rose.”

By now, Alana had started calling Rose by her chosen name the same way Luisa had, and above all else, that endeared her to Luisa.  But still, Luisa couldn’t help but fidget in her seat.  “Maybe.  She told me not to say.”

“If I guess, then you aren’t saying.”

“That only works on kids, Dr. Bloom, and I’m not a kid!”  Luisa stuck her tongue out then just as quickly pretended she hadn’t at all.  She shouldn’t act this way with her therapist.  But she could act this way with a friend.

“If you want to go,” Alana said after a long pause, “then I would suggest going.  I can’t force you to stay.  But,” her therapist looked up and made sure to meet Luisa’s eyes before she continued, “I wouldn’t go this time.  Wait and see what happens when she gets caught.  I can’t prevent you from getting consequences for running away, although I can make sure that your time with me is kept safe.  I won’t add a new patient or replace you because I’ll know why you’ve gone – when or if you go, whether now or in the future.”  Then she looked down and let out a sigh.  “However, I do not think that running away with Rose will be good for you right now.  If anything, the time apart will be good for you.”

“Good for me?” Luisa asked, her eyes narrowing.  “What do you mean?”

Alana leaned back on her sofa and glanced out the window as Luisa had, albeit briefly.  It took a little bit more time for her to reply, and while she waited, Luisa took a long gulp of her hot chocolate.  By now, it had cooled enough that it didn’t burn her tongue, but she could still feel how warm it was all the way down her throat.

“You spend most of your free time in Belle Reve with Rose, correct?”

“Yes.”

“She’s helped you through your panic attacks—”

“—by grounding me, yes.”

“—by using _herself_ as the means by which to ground you,” Alana amended.  “I’m worried that you may grow dependent on her for help instead of becoming independent enough to use what you have been learning on your own.”

“What’s wrong with having a support system?”

“A support system helps you by teaching you how to function _independent of them_.  Rose may be doing her best to help you, but her actions are not the most effective form of help.”  Alana smiled, voice gentle.  “I do not want to separate you from your friend, but I do want to see if you are able to maintain your progress away from her.  It would do you not good to leave Belle Reve and Rose and find that you are unable to function without her.”

“Ok,” Luisa said, finally, after listening to what her therapist had to say.  “I…I guess that makes sense.”  She looked down at her mug again, and her hand strayed to run through Applesauce’s fur.  “Better to figure that out now rather than later.”

“But if you want to leave with her,” Alana said, voice soft, “you can.  I won’t stop you.”

Luisa pressed her lips together into a thin line before saying, “You said one of the other patients escapes persistently.  You _were_ talking about Rose when you said that, right?”

“Perhaps.  But if I told you that, where would be the risk in saying no?”

Luisa took a deep breath.  “She might not ask me again.”  She looked up but didn’t meet Alana’s eyes.  “I don’t want to risk that.”

“But if that happens, then she really isn’t the person you thought she was, is she?”

* * *

 

When Luisa returned from her session with Alana, she found that Rose was sprawled on the couch again.  Her head was tilted against the back, crinkly hair sprinkled all around her, and she didn’t look up when Luisa entered or when the door clicked shut behind her.  Instead, she heaved a huge sigh, and Luisa watched as her chest moved up and back down, tugging her lower lip between her teeth.  She carefully navigated to her safe spot on the couch, even though it was right up against Rose.  “Hey,” she said, voice soft, and she lay her head against Rose’s shoulder.  “Is this okay?”

“Hm?”  Rose opened her eyes and say up a little bit straighter, leaning forward so that she was no longer looking down the hallway behind her.  Her bright blue eyes met Luisa’s wide, imploring ones, and she smiled that amused, thin-lipped smile she had.  She moved so that Luisa’s head rested on her chest instead, wrapping her arm around Luisa’s shoulders, and she brushed some of Luisa’s dark hair behind her ear.  “Did you have a hard session?”

“No,’ Luisa said, shaking her head once.  “Not any harder than some of the other sessions have been.”  She snuggled closer to Rose, eyes glancing around the common room to make sure there weren’t any nurses watching.  They didn’t seem to like it when she and Rose sat together like this, and while they didn’t separate them (maybe they thought that would be negative for her mental health; maybe they thought it would be negative for Rose’s), their displeasure was fairly blatant.

After a few minutes curled up against her, Luisa took a deep breath.  “Rose?”

“Hm?”

Luisa looked up to see Rose watching her curiously.  “Have you taken anyone else out with you before?”

Rose blinked a couple of times, and her curious, content expression faded entirely into a much more carefully crafted neutral one.  Her head tilted to one side.  “Does that matter?”

“No.”  Luisa broke their eye contact, afraid to continue.  But she pushed through anyway, unsure why she was asking because, truthfully, she didn’t want to know – even if she already knew about Jessica.  “But have you?”

Rose huffed.  “Jessica, once, a long time ago.”  She leaned away from Luisa, and her arm moved from her shoulders to the back of the couch.  “No one else.”

“Have you asked anyone else?”

Rose’s teeth gritted together, her jaw clenching.  “Yes,” she admitted, finally, “before Jessica, one other.”  Then she was silent.

Unlike with Jessica, Rose did not mention a name, and Luisa was afraid to ask.  As far as she knew, the only other person who had been here as long as Jessica was Betty, and she didn’t see Rose asking Betty to escape Belle Reve with her.  Maybe this was another piece of the puzzle – of whatever it was that made Jessica and Rose seem to hate each other so much.  Whatever it was, she didn’t feel like it was an appropriate time to ask.

“Why did you ask me?” Luisa asked then, her voice tiny, still looking away, avoiding meeting Rose’s eyes again.

“Hm?”

Luisa looked up, and Rose’s head was tilted to one side again, eyes watching her.  She’d relaxed somewhat since the mention of the person before Jessica, but maybe that was only because Luisa’s question had given her something else to think about.  “Why,” Luisa started again, and although she was trying to have Rose hear her better, her voice seemed even smaller than it had before, “did you ask me?  Is this…is this like a date, or is it…is it something…something else?”

“What do you want it to be?”

Luisa pressed her lips together and shook her head.  “No, I don’t want you to answer with whatever you think I’ll like.  I want to know what you meant by it.”

“Will it change your answer?”

“I don’t know.” Luisa looked up again, but she couldn’t hold Rose’s gaze.  She tucked her head into the curve of Rose’s neck, hiding her face.  “Please just…just tell me.”

“I thought it would be nice,” Rose said, no longer hesitating.  “I thought you would enjoy being outside of Belle Reve, and,” here she lifted Luisa’s chin, making sure to meet her eyes as she smiled, “I thought seeing each other somewhere else would be…enlightening.”

 _I like you_ was what Luisa wanted Rose to say, but that wasn’t what Rose said, even if Luisa could try and pull it out of what she did say.  And now, with Rose’s fingers lifting her chin and her eyes staring into her own, Luisa wanted nothing more than to breach the small gap between them and kiss her.  Her eyes glanced down to Rose’s lips and remained there.  “…and other things.”

“And other things,” Rose echoed, her voice a whisper.  Her lips parted in a chuckle, and Luisa thought she’d never heard a more pleasant sound.  “Is that what you want?”

Luisa felt herself nodding once, twice, starting to lean forward—

Then she pulled back and shook her head, as though trying to wake herself up from a deep dream.  “I…I don’t think….”  She already hated this.  She wanted nothing more than to go with Rose.  But….

“If I say no, will you ask me again later?”

“No,” Rose began, but then she held a finger up against Luisa’s lips before she could say anything more, “but if you ask me to _reschedule_ , I can take you with me another time.”

Luisa pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of the finger against her lips.  After their first meals together, it might not have seemed like much, but the contact was something she desperately wanted right now.  Her eyes closed briefly.  “That, then,” she said as Rose removed her finger and she opened her eyes again.  “Go without me this time, but next time….  Next time, take me with you.”  She looked up, trying to meet Rose’s eyes.  “I want to go with you.  I _really_ want to go with you, you have no idea how much I want to go with you, but….”  Her voice faded.  She wasn’t sure how to explain everything without letting Rose know that she’d unintentionally told more than a few people about it, and she didn’t want the other woman to know _that_ either.

“You’re afraid.”

“Yes.”  That was easier than telling the rest of the truth, even more important than having told other people because it was _why_ she’d brought it up.

“Afraid of me,” Rose started, “or afraid of them?”  Her eyes flicked to one of the nurses and back again to meet Luisa’s eyes.

Luisa broke the contact again, unable to hold her gaze.  “Both.”

When Rose didn’t say anything, Luisa looked back up.  Rose’s expression appeared to be carefully neutral again.  No jaw clenching, no _anything_ , but her eyes were focused away again.  “Not,” Luisa started by way of explanation, “that I’m scared of _you_ because I’m not, I’m not afraid of you, but I’m afraid that—”

“I get it.”

“You do?”

 _Now_ Rose’s jaw clenched, even though she tried to hide it.  She opened her mouth as though to speak, then she shook her head, shutting her lips again.  “Waiting doesn’t fix that.”

“If I…if I see what happens when you get back, then…then I won’t,” Luisa started, and she swallowed once, trying to get past the lump in her throat, “if I know how they treat you, then I won’t have to worry about that, and I’ll….  I won’t be….”  She kept expecting Rose to interrupt her, but much to her surprise, the other woman waited for her to finish instead of jumping in to complete her statement or to react to it before she’d finished.  “I won’t be afraid of how they might react, and then, even if it is a trap,” and all of a sudden, her eyes widened because she was afraid of how Rose would react to that, and then her haltering speech just became another unfiltered ramble, “and I don’t think it is, I don’t think you’d do that, I _know_ you wouldn’t do that, not to me, because you’ve always been nothing but _good_ to me, but everyone acts like you’ve been nice to them and suddenly _not_ nice and if the only other person you’ve ever taken out was Jessica and I’ve seen the way you two treat each other, and I don’t want that to suddenly be _us_ because I wanted to go out and do _other things_ with you because I don’t think I could stand it if you were just….  Not if it was a trap but if I went out with you once and then all of that happened, I don’t think I could do that.  I’m not….  I’m not Jessica,” she said, finally, the ramble wearing itself through.  “I’m not that strong.  I don’t think I could bear it.”  She looked up, trying to meet Rose’s eyes again, but her gaze didn’t get high enough before it dropped again out of fear.

“What happened with Jessica,” Rose started to say, but her voice was tense and the words came through gritted teeth, “isn’t something you need to worry about.”

“I didn’t before, but now that I know you were good enough friends once for _that_ —”

“Jessica and I were never friends.”

“But you took her with you.”

“Yes.”

There was silence for a long moment.  Luisa tried to take Rose’s hand in her own, entangling their fingers together, and while Rose didn’t exactly resist her touch, it still felt as though she were moving someone who didn’t want to be moved.  Eventually, she let out a deeply held breath.  “You don’t have to tell me.”

“Jessica was concerned for one of the other patients, one who had just left Belle Reve,” Rose said, finally, her voice soft.  “We left together to visit her.  I would have preferred to go alone, but Jessica was insistent that she come with me.  She thought it would do the other patient some good.  So we went together.”

“What happened?”

Rose’s lips pressed together in a thin line, and her brows raised before she shook her head – one small shake, back and forth.  “It doesn’t matter.”  Her tone said otherwise, but it also said very clearly to not press the issue.  She gave Luisa’s hand a gentle squeeze.  “That won’t happen with you.”

“Still,” Luisa gave Rose an echoing squeeze, “I’d rather…I’d rather reschedule.  Is that…is that okay with you?”

“Yes,” Rose said, but her voice was hesitant.  She wrapped her arm around Luisa’s shoulders again, pulling her a little closer, and Luisa hid her face in Rose’s neck again.  “Stay with me until I go?”

Luisa looked up and risked the nurses’ ire by pressing a quick kiss to Rose’s cheek before resting her head against her chest again.  “As long as I can.  As long as you’ll let me.”

* * *

 

It was raining outside as Rose packed for her escape.  Spring thundered overhead, and little drops pelted the window panes behind the thick black rails.  Her body gave a great, involuntary shiver, shaking herself off.  Her room was still bare of anything that might identify it as a place in which someone lived – no pictures pasted on the walls, no decorations, no plush toys – although there were little bits of something sticky on one of the walls, pieces of ripped paper still stuck where photos or otherwise had been torn away.  A black bag lay on one of the beds.  It was more a backpack than a bag, with a strap that would cross over her chest to hold it in place.  The top was zipped shut, hiding what little she’d packed from her own drawers, but the front remained open.

Rose crouched down in front of the cabinet that used to belong to Susanna Barnett.  She took the photo out first and tucked it into her back pocket, behind the wallet she’d snatched from one of the nurses earlier that day.  Then he took what little that remained – the white jersey with the red accents, the boxy grey jacket, and the hairbrush with her golden strands of hair – and laid them on the other bed.  She placed the hairbrush in the center of the jersey before wrapping it carefully, then placed the jersey in the center of the jacket and buttoned the jacket around it before folding it neatly.  Only then did she tuck them into the open front pocket of her bag and zip it closed.

Her fingers ran across the front pocket once, tracing the lines and wrinkles where the suit jacket pressed against the outside of the bag.

Her heart hummed.

Then the sky outside flashed, followed by a loud grumbling _ache_.  Rose didn’t jump.  She grabbed the bag and slung it over her shoulder, tightening it against her skin, then pulled an old black hoodie over it, one intentionally two sizes too big for just this reason.  She crept to her bedroom door and glanced out of the little glass window, checking left and right before creeping the door open and slipping outside.

Two feet and then the tunnels.

_Two feet and then the tunnels._


	10. Chapter 10

The next day, Rose was gone.

Luisa looked for her at breakfast but didn’t see her.  Even though it was possible that the other woman had simply eaten and made her way out of the cafeteria before Luisa arrived, she knew, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, that wasn’t the case.  Her fingers tightened on her cafeteria tray, and she added too much sugar to the coffee she was now allowed to drink, too much creamer.  It tasted almost like the dregs of cereal milk with a hint of coffee splashed in instead of actual _coffee_.

After another brief glance over the cafeteria, Luisa decided to sit next to Betty, across from Jessica, and once she did so, she heaved an unhappy sigh, folding one arm across the table and leaning heavily forward.

“Nice to see you’ve graced us with your presence,” Jessica murmured, her hands wrapped around her cup of coffee as though trying to get warm.

Betty didn’t say anything, but she understood.  She reached over and patted Luisa’s hand twice before returning to her own meal.

“Thanks, Betty,” Luisa said.  She didn’t lift her eyes to meet Jessica’s; she didn’t have the heart to be mad at her right now.  That didn’t stop her from being annoyed.  But it was first thing in the morning, and she’d only just gotten her coffee.  Even without Rose’s abrupt disappearance, she would likely react the same way.  She yawned and settled into her seat a little more firmly.  Then she waved one hand, eyes bleary.  “Go on.  Keep talking like I’m not here.  I won’t interrupt.”

“But you _are_ here.”  Jessica placed her cup back on her tray with a smile far too pleasant for how early it was.  “That changes our entire course of conversation.”

“Were you talking about me?” Luisa asked, taking a bite of her clammy scrambled eggs.

“No.”

“Were you talking about Rose?”

Betty winced.

“We do, sometimes,” Jessica admitted.  Her head tilted to one side.  “We would be now, if you weren’t here.”

“Well then, by all means, pretend I’m not here.  I’d love to hear what you have to say.”  Luisa’s gaze finally lifted from her tray to meet Jessica’s, and she gave her a wink before letting it drop back to her fork full of eggs.  “I want to know.”

Jessica let out a deep breath through her nose.  It looked like she was going to say something else, but then she turned to Betty, as though Luisa weren’t there.  “Looks like she’s gotten out again.”

Betty’s eyes flicked to Luisa and then back to Jessica, then she nodded once, head lilting back and forth as she did so.

“Should be quiet for a few days.”

 _Days._   Luisa’s eyes widened, and she couldn’t help but gasp.  She coughed, choking on her bite of eggs.  Then she pounded on her chest a few times, waving a hand in the nurses’ direction, and again in Jessica’s, as she struggled to swallow and breathe correctly.  “I’m okay.  I’m okay.”

“How long did you think she would be gone?”

“I don’t know!” Luisa said, then her eyes widened again.  “Besides, how would _I_ know, anyway?  It’s not like she told me beforehand.  Because she didn’t, you know.  She didn’t tell me.  I’m just as surprised as you are.  Where did she _go_ , anyway?  She’s probably just in her room.  What do you mean _gotten out_ and _for a few days_?  She’s probably just—”

Betty gave her a look, and Luisa stopped, looking back down at her tray.  She heaved another sigh.  “How long is she _normally_ gone?”

Jessica shrugged once.  “Depends on how long she’s been cooped up.  It’s been at least a month since she left, so two days at least.  Unless she gets caught sooner.”  She ticked her plastic fork to one side, holding it aloft.  “More than a month, she’d take the full weekend.”

“How long were you gone when _you_ went?”

Betty’s eyes widened, and she forced herself to look away as Jessica dropped her fork with a loud _clatter_ onto the table.  But Jessica didn’t look to Betty first.  Instead, she stared directly at Luisa.  “She told you?”  Her voice was barely above a whisper, but the venom in her voice was blatant.

“I only asked if she’d asked anyone else before—”

“She asked you to go with her?”

Luisa blushed.  She couldn’t help it.  “Don’t tell her I told you.  I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.  Please don’t—  Just forget that I said that.  She didn’t ask me anything.  I didn’t _know_ anything—”  She held tight to her now lukewarm cup.  “She only said that she’d asked you once but that you weren’t friends.  She didn’t say what happened while you were gone or anything like that.  I don’t know anything.  I really don’t.”  Her face flushed a bright, bright scarlet, and she stared into the light tan coffee still sitting in her cup.

Jessica _seemed_ to relax, but when she picked her fork up, she only placed it back on her tray with an echoing clatter.  Then she took her coffee cup and scooted the rest of the tray to one side.  “Do you _want_ to know what happened?”

Luisa’s eyes flicked up, briefly meeting Jessica’s again.  They were blue, but darker than Alana’s icy ones or Rose’s, which were so full of sky.  Jessica’s looked like a deep, deep ocean, so deep that the blue seemed to turn to an ashy gray.  “Would you tell me?” she asked, almost breathless.  Then, ashamed of herself, she looked away and held up one hand before Jessica could begin.  Her teeth tugged on her lower lip.  “No, I….”  She hesitated.  “I don’t want to know.  I don’t want to hear it—”

“—from me,” Jessica completed, not even waiting for what Luisa might continue to say.  She leaned back in her chair, one hand wrapped just under her chest so that her fingers could tighten on her other arm, and took another sip of her coffee.  She waved her hand dismissively before Luisa could try and explain.  “No, no, you want to hear it from _Clara_ , I get it—”

“ _Her name is Rose._ ”

“You said to talk as though you weren’t here.  That means calling her by her _real_ name.”

“You can’t talk as though I’m not here and talk _to_ me!  That’s not how that works!”

Betty reached over and patted Luisa’s hand with one of hers then reached over to touch Jessica’s arm in what was a clear appeal for the two of them to stop fighting.  She squeezed Luisa’s hand once and then patted Jessica’s arm again.

“It’s fine, Betty.”  Jessica scooted her chair back with a loud sound as the plastic feet screeched across the tile floor.  She tipped her cup back and finished her coffee before placing it, empty, on her tray.  “She doesn’t want to hear it, and I…I need a breather.”  Her eyes met Betty’s briefly.  “You know I’ll need space.”

Betty nodded, and Jessica left without another word, taking her tray with her.

Luisa’s eyes followed the redhead as she left, then she turned to Betty with a curious expression, leaning forward on one hand.  “Why does she _need space_?” she asked.  “All I did was bring up that she’d left with Rose once.  Was it really that bad?”

Luisa was mostly venting and had meant the question hypothetically, but Betty’s hand tightened on hers so hard that it hurt.  When Luisa looked up towards her, mouth open as though to ask what she was doing, Betty made sure to meet her eyes and blinked once.

_Yes.  It was that bad._

Luisa wasn’t sure what to say.  “ _Really?_ ”  She probably _shouldn’t_ be surprised, considering that whatever it was had been the decisive blow between Rose and Jessica, but given Rose’s comment that they hadn’t exactly been friends before whatever happened _happened_ , she hadn’t thought it too serious.  But if Betty was reacting this way, then it _must_ have been.

Maybe whatever Rose’s diagnosis was had only been exacerbated when she was outside of Belle Reve.  Maybe that was why she’d been here so long.  Or maybe _Jessica’s_ illness was the one that got worse.  Luisa hadn’t really asked what Jessica’s was, but she thought it was obvious.  The rabbit thing that Jessica had mentioned so long ago – it had to be a delusion, one that apparently made her unfit to be part of society.  And unless she’d brought them _with_ her when she escaped, of _course_ that was worse outside of Belle Reve.  It had to be.  Not that Luisa could really talk, considering her own hallucinations.

Luisa lowered her head, bit her lower lip, and then shook her head once.

Maybe she really _did_ want to know what happened, even if she had to hear it from Jessica.

Or maybe she’d ask Rose about it more when she got back from wherever it was she had gone.

Betty blinked again once as a response and then patted Luisa’s hand again before going back to what was left of her breakfast.

“If I asked Jessica,” Luisa said, slow, hesitant, as if still thinking about it before her next bite, “would she…would she tell me what happened?”

Betty stopped mid-chew and looked up.  She blinked once, but she sighed as she did so.  Her lips rolled together.  Then she shook her head.

“She wouldn’t tell me?” Luisa asked.  “Or you think I shouldn’t ask her?”

Betty looked up and met Luisa’s earnest gaze with an expression that very clearly said _I can’t answer both questions at once, now, can I?_

“Sorry, sorry,” Luisa said, waving her hand dismissively.  “I shouldn’t be curious.  It’s not any of my business.”  Her lips pressed together, and she looked up again, meeting Betty’s dark eyes with a wry smile.  “But _you_ think I shouldn’t ask her.”

Betty sighed and blinked once.

“You think I _should_ ask her?”

Betty’s eyes narrowed, and she blinked twice, shaking her head.  _No, no, no, no, no._

“But I can ask Rose when she gets back.”

There was silence – of course there was silence because Luisa was waiting for a response and Betty _didn’t speak_ – but it _felt_ like a silence.  Luisa could hear the clattering of a few plastic forks and knives – more clacking than clattering, given that they weren’t metal – and a few other conversations far enough away that she couldn’t make out what they were saying, just heard the murmuring voices and the hum thrum of _life_.  Even that faded, though, as their conversation lingered, Betty eating as though she hadn’t heard Luisa’s last question.

“Betty?”

The brunette looked up with a carefully crafted expression, her lips pressed together, rolled between her teeth, and her plastic fork stuck between her fingers.  After a few minutes, she just shrugged, but it was less an _I don’t know_ shrug and more of a _it isn’t any of my business_ shrug.  Almost as though she were saying _I wouldn’t, but I won’t tell you not to, either_.  Her gaze returned to her food and her mostly empty platter, and she shook her head – not as an answer to Luisa’s question but probably more in disappointment at what was left, although Luisa couldn’t know for sure.  Then she looked back to Luisa with a smile and waved her fingers.

“You’re done?”

Betty nodded once.  She picked up her tray with another little wave and left Luisa behind.

This time, Luisa didn’t follow.  She sat at the long table with her tray in front of her, and while she did occasionally take a bite of her rapidly cooling scrambled eggs or a spoonful of her Cinnamon Toast Crunch (which had grown unfortunately soggy over the course of their conversation), her thoughts were less on her food and more on….  Well, on what, exactly, she couldn’t quite name.  She didn’t like that Betty didn’t want her to ask Jessica any questions about what had happened, even if she _would_ prefer to hear the story from Rose anyway, and she didn’t like that Betty appeared to not want her to ask _Rose_ about it, either.  But she also didn’t like that whatever it was that had happened kept coming up and being referenced and she _still_ had no idea about any of it.  Just pieces and threads that kind of sort of connected sometimes.

And that wasn’t even considering the fact that Rose had mentioned – that there was someone _before_ Jessica who she had asked to join her when she escaped.  Someone who had apparently turned her down, since Rose said that the only other person she’d ever taken out was Jessica.

Luisa dropped her fork with a singular, final clatter.  It wasn’t worth thinking about right now.  Thinking wasn’t going to give her any answers.  And it was just going to consume her, if she let it.  But she wouldn’t.  She had a plan.  Ask Rose later.  When she got back.  And hope, hope, _hope_ that Rose would tell her what happened.  And if _not_ , maybe she would just let it go.

Or she’d ask Jessica.

Well, one could _dream_ that she’d let it go.

* * *

 

“It’s nice to see that you’re still here,” Alana said as she held the door open for Luisa and they walked into her house.

“Still here?” Luisa echoed, looking at her little therapist with a confused expression before finally realizing what she meant.  “Oh, you mean Rose.”  Her eyes narrowed as she walked further in.  “How do you know?” she asked, following her into the kitchen.  “She was only just gone this morning – or last night, whenever it was she left, I don’t know, it’s not like she told me her plans or anything.”

In fact, Luisa had expected Rose to wait to leave until the weekend, until Saturday morning at least, but that plan had obviously not gone through as she had expected.  But it wasn’t like she was _bitter_ or anything.  She wasn’t.  Why should Rose include her in her escape plans if she wasn’t going with her?  She shouldn’t.  Obviously.  At all.

“The nurses alerted me this morning.”  Alana wrapped her hands around her little coffee mug, now refilled.  “Just in case I should see her around town or anything like that,” she continued, although her voice seemed a little tighter.

Luisa grabbed a new mug from the cabinet – she’d been shuffling through them each time they met, although she still held a certain fondness for the duck head she’d used the first time.  This time, however, she chose a bright, fire truck red mug, one with little fake traces of smoke everywhere around it, little dark clouds across the flames, and filled it with hot chocolate.  Even though she’d been given permission to drink coffee, and even though she did still often drink it with her breakfast at this point, as she had earlier, she preferred to drink hot chocolate at Alana’s house.  It seemed much more familiar…much more sweet.

“Not because she would see you for therapy?” Luisa asked to continue their conversation as she poured a handful of mini-marshmallows into her mug under Alana’s watchful eyes.

“No,” Alana said, voice still tight.  “Rose sees another therapist – one of my colleagues.  I believe that he is much better suited for her needs than I am.”

Luisa had never asked Rose about her therapist.  Well, she’d _indicated_ wanting to know more about her sessions, but Rose had always easily bypassed her questions – or redirected the conversation.  For the most part, she hadn’t taken offense to that.  Therapy was a private thing, and if Rose wanted to keep it private, then by all means, keep it private.  Just like her diagnosis.  But she couldn’t help but be curious about what methods the other therapists used, even if she liked how Alana was treating her.  Truth be told, she should have asked the others about their therapists, too, but she had no reason to believe that Jessica, Betty, or Alice saw anyone else.  Actually, she’d expected _Rose_ saw Alana, too, and was surprised to find that she _didn’t_.

“Who is he?” she asked, voice still demure, as though trying to hide her obvious interest.

Alana smiled as she met Luisa’s eyes.  “Why don’t you ask Rose yourself when she gets back?”

“I don’t think she’ll tell me,” Luisa said immediately with a frown as they moved into the living room.  She sighed.  “And I guess it’s not really any of my business, but—”

“You want to know.”

“Yeah.”  Luisa shrugged and curled up on her customary end of the sofa.  Applesauce the dog was nowhere to be seen, and Luisa expected she was on a pillow somewhere else, tired out from an early morning walk and not necessarily wanting to be around people.  She knew what that was like.  “And even if he wasn’t her therapist, whoever he is, I don’t know, I’m just,” and here she grinned with another, much lighter, shrug, “curious.”

Alana’s smile never left her face as she sat on the other end of the couch.  Her hands were still clasped around her mug of coffee.  She pulled her legs up against herself and settled against the other arm.  Then she placed her mug on the coffee table.  “You’re not the only one who’s curious about him,” she said.  “But I’m sure you can guess who he is.”  She leaned back against the couch arm once more.  “You seem like the kind of person who did her research before she was committed.”

“So he was listed on the webpage, too?”

“Mmhm.”  Alana nodded.  “He’s near the bottom.  Only for special cases.”

“Special cases?” Luisa echoed.  “Rose is a special case?”  She met Alana’s eyes but knew that asking that wouldn’t get her any answer other than the ones she already had.  Mostly it was something she could ruminate on while she waited for Rose to get back.  It seemed like the questions she wanted to ask Rose just kept piling up.  The more important question was whether or not Rose would answer them when she returned.

Luisa pushed that thought to the back of her mind for later consideration and tried to remember what she’d seen when she’d started her research into the different institutions nearby.  She didn’t remember much about the other institutions, although she did remember that there was one specifically meant for children that she’d briefly looked into where a Dr. Crain worked who had seemed interesting.  But Luisa wasn’t a child any longer, so although she’d enjoyed the look and the feel of that institution, it wasn’t anything she could have particularly used herself, even if she _did_ wonder why her father hadn’t had her seeing a therapist long before now, given that Carla had existed since she was six years old.

Maybe therapists scared him as much as mental institutions did.

“It’s been a couple of weeks since I came here,” Luisa started, “and it’s been even longer since I did my research, so I….”  Her voice faded away with a soft _hm_.  She remembered that there _were_ other therapists – an odd assortment of men and women, none of whom had really interested her other than Alana.  There’d been another with a similar pedigree down at the bottom, but she couldn’t remember his name or even what he looked like.  Men weren’t really of interest to her; she couldn’t have said whether someone else might consider him attractive or not (although she definitely knew that people such as herself would certainly see Alana as such).

“I can’t remember,” she said finally.  “It’s been too long.  But if you gave me a computer—”

“No,” Alana said, resisting what Luisa _knew_ was her own award-winning smile.  “I think we have other things to talk about.”

Luisa looked down into her mug of hot chocolate and nodded.  Then she took a big sip of her drink.  “What are we talking about today?”

“You brought up during our last session that losing your access to visitors would be a particularly hard consequence for you.”  Alana’s smile faded into a much more serious expression, and her head listed to one side.  “Are you expecting visitors during your stay at Belle Reve?”

“Who doesn’t?” Luisa asked without thinking, and then her eyes grew wide.  “No, don’t tell me, I’m certain there are a lot of people who don’t expect visitors, and honestly _I_ don’t expect visitors.  My dad’s got problems with mental institutions, and my brother....”  Her voice trailed off as her gaze moved away.  “Well, my brother’s preoccupied with school.”  When she looked back up to meet Alana’s eyes, her smile had returned.

“You’ve mentioned your father’s problems with mental institutions before, but we haven’t really delved into that.  Would you like to do so now?”

Luisa pressed her lips together, and her hands tightened their grip on her mug of hot chocolate.  The warmth was comforting.  She nodded once, hesitantly.  “My mother was in a mental institution,” she said, her voice soft, “a long time ago.”

“You typically don’t like to talk about your mother.”

“No, I don’t, I know.”  Luisa’s fingers tightened again on the hot chocolate, and she couldn’t meet Alana’s eyes.  “I _still_ don’t, but after two weeks, it’s probably best for my mental health and my recovery if we….  If we talk about her.”

Alana remained very still.  “Ok.”

When Luisa looked up to meet Alana’s eyes again, she saw that the other woman was watching her curiously.  But her curiosity didn’t seem mean or intrusive.  In fact, there was a certain fondness in Alana’s face that was almost comforting.  It was certainly welcoming.

“Where would you like to start?”

Luisa’s lips pressed together.  “I don’t know if I should start with what I remember of her or with the mental health issues or with….”  She shook her head once and decided to just dive right in because if she thought about it too long, she knew she wouldn’t address it at all.  “My mother committed suicide when I was six years old.”  Her gaze left Alana’s face so that she didn’t have to see her reaction.  Instead, she focused on her hot chocolate and the little marshmallows within it and how they moved when she swirled the mug.  “She jumped off a bridge.  My father,” and here Luisa looked up reflexively, “was there, but it was raining and he couldn’t see where she was or what she was doing until she was on the edge of the bridge, and he couldn’t….”  She looked down again.  “He didn’t make it to her in time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago,” Luisa continued as though Alana hadn’t said anything, and her head lilted to one side as she struggled to come up with the right words.  “You can’t really _get over_ something like that, but I’m as _over it_ as I think I’m ever going to be, really.”

“I understand.”  There was a moment of silence, and then Alana asked, her voice soft and careful, “You said you were six when you first began to see Carla?”

Luisa nodded, opened her mouth as though to say something, and then just as quickly shut it again.  When she looked up, briefly, she saw Alana nodding, and she was grateful that her little therapist wasn’t the sort to take extensive notes during their conversations, even if she expected that Alana would write a note about it in her file later.  There was something almost unsettling about the idea of Alana – or _anyone_ , really, therapist or otherwise – making a note about it, about her mother’s death and when she began to see Carla, while she was talking.

Still, she knew the connection Alana was making.

“I don’t think she was meant to help me get through my mother’s death,” Luisa said carefully.  “If she was, she would have left once—”

“Once?” Alana echoed, prompting Luisa to continue.

“She _did_ leave.”  Luisa hadn’t really noticed it before maybe because she hadn’t really _thought_ about it before, but it was there all the same.  “She left and then she came back.  Multiple times.  It wasn’t….  Carla wasn’t a _consistent_ presence until….  Until _college_.”  Her lips pressed together again.  “But there weren’t always horrible things happening whenever she showed up,” she continued, her voice in earnest now, her words a little more rapid.  “She would send me letters when I was away, and she showed up in middle school again, and we sent letters all throughout middle school after I moved away and again into high school and then we’d both moved around so many times that one or the other of us lost the other’s address and then she showed up again in college—  I guess she _was_ an almost constant presence, even if she wasn’t always physically around.  Maybe that’s why no one knew to be worried because I was just getting letters and no one would think I was hallucinating _letters_ —”

“Do you still have any of the letters she sent?” Alana asked as Luisa’s voice trailed off again.

Luisa’s eyes narrowed, considering.  “I do.  They’re in a box in my house.  I didn’t bring any of them with me, but…  Maybe if I get out with Rose, I can go get them then.  If you wanted to see them.  If it was really important…?”

“I don’t need to see them,” Alana said, her voice soft, “although I would be curious to see if they were in your own handwriting or if you’d taken on a different one entirely.”

“Or if they were blank?” Luisa suggested, her eyes wide.

“I don’t think they would be blank.”  Alana reached over for her mug of coffee and took a sip before returning it to its place on her coffee table.  “Your mind would likely want something it could hold onto, something concrete.  I don’t think you hallucinated them entirely.”

“Oh.”  Luisa thought about that for a moment before nodding her understanding.  “But you want to see them.”

“It isn’t strictly necessary, but it would be interesting.”  Alana’s eyes met Luisa’s again.  “We’ve trailed off from our original topic, though, haven’t we?”

“My mother,” Luisa said hesitantly, and she nodded again with a deep breath.

“I’m sorry.  I felt it was important to acknowledge that connection with Carla in case you hadn’t—”

“—in case I hadn’t thought about it.  I get it.”  Luisa pressed her lips together.  “I don’t really remember my mother all that much,” she said with a shake of her head and a shrug.  “My dad got rid of most of her pictures.  I think he keeps them in a scrapbook somewhere.  I know he keeps them because I used to break into his safe for the better liquor, and I found a bunch of them there – and some of Carla’s letters.  He’d hidden them from me.  I don’t know why….”  Her voice trailed off again.  Then she shook her head again and took another sip of her hot chocolate.  “But she…she was in a mental institution before she jumped off the bridge and they hadn’t exactly given her a clean bill of health but she didn’t want to be there anymore.  Dad used to visit her all the time.  Sometimes he’d take me with him.  I remember it smelled like old people and cleaning supplies and I didn’t really like going because it scared me but I missed my mom and I wanted to see her.  Sometimes other people were very loud, shouting down the hallway, and I didn’t like that, either.”  She closed her eyes, trying to remember.  “He thought that maybe the institution and all the other people were making things worse instead of better, so he checked her out.  He told me….”  She tugged on her bottom lip and nodded again, this time more to herself than to anyone else.  “He told me he was going to get Mommy, and I….  I wanted to go with him, but he wouldn’t let me.  And then she was back for a few days.

“We were caught on the bridge during a rainstorm and—”

After a few minutes of silence, Luisa opened her eyes and shrugged.  “It wasn’t all bad, though.  My mom, she used to tell the most amazing stories.  When she’d read books to me, she would use voices and everything – squeaky and high-pitched and low, deep growls.  I thought I had the _best_ mom in the world.  But every kid thinks that ,don’t they?  When they’re that small and don’t know any better?”  Luisa smiled, and it’s an easy thing.  Too easy, maybe, because it’s not a happy smile, just a smile out of habit, by necessity almost.

Luisa shrugged again.  “My father won’t come to visit me because when he comes, he’ll remember my mom.  He’ll see me and think I should be somewhere better, even though we both agreed that of all the options Belle Reve was the best place for me to be, and he’ll be so afraid that I’m turning into my mother….  I saw it in his eyes when he found out about Carla.”  She couldn’t look up from the mug in her hands.  “Dad…isn’t going to visit.  If he were going to visit at all, he would have started by now.  We used to see my mom together once a week, and he was there more than I was.  It’s been almost three weeks now, and he hasn’t come to see me once.”

Alana nodded as though taking her time to take this all in.  She pulled her leg closer against her chest.  “And you mentioned your bother – he’s in school?”

“Yes, his junior year of college.  He’ll turn….”  Luisa shook her head with a grin and a little laugh and it seemed like she might be a little bit better than before.  “Not that it matters, given _my_ family, but he’ll be twenty-one sometime this month.”  She smiled, but while the last one held no joy, this one was obviously pained.  “I should be there for that.  I should at least….  I should find a way to send him something.  A present.  I don’t know what or how because we’re not really able to do anything like that around here.”

“The nurses should set up for outside excursions sometime this month,” Alana said.  “If you ask, they might be able to send him something if you find what you like on one of those.”

“Maybe,” Luisa said, “but it’s not the same as _being_ there.”  She placed her mug of hot chocolate, now empty save for a few mini marshmallows, on the coffee table and then leaned back against the arm of the couch.  This time, she didn’t look at Alana, letting her gaze drift off through the windows in front of her.  There were storm clouds overhead, but the snow was mostly gone.  If she looked hard enough, there were patches of sunlight in the trees at the other end of Alana’s yard.  She hoped that Rose had somewhere safe and warm to stay while she was gone.

“I’m his older sister,” she continued, “and it’s….  I know he’s my brother, but I basically raised him.  Dad had so many wives and he was always preoccupied with something and I....  It was Raf and me against the world.”

“And he hasn’t visited you.”

“No,” Luisa said immediately.  She shook her head and turned to Alana.  “He’s got school, and that’s more important than visiting me.  If I wasn’t in Belle Reve, I wouldn’t expect to see him at all this semester until his birthday.”

“But you _are_ in Belle Reve.”

“You’d think that would change things, right?  But I guess it doesn’t.”  Luisa’s lips pursed to one side.  “Maybe he thinks it’s better that I get better without him visiting.  Maybe he’d feel just as uncomfortable visiting as Dad would.  Maybe—”

“Maybe it’s better not to wonder why your brother isn’t here and just be happy that you’re able to take the time to get better.”  Alana leaned forward and patted Luisa’s hand in a move that was oddly reminiscent of Betty’s earlier.  “I don’t think it means he doesn’t love you.”

“I didn’t say it did.  I didn’t think that.  I didn’t even _consider_ that.  Of _course_ my brother loves me.  He’s just got other, _better_ things to do with his time than to visit me.  Okay, maybe not _better_ because if _he_ were in the hospital, _I_ ’d be there every day, probably more often than I should, and they’d probably have to beat me away with a broom because I’d want to make sure he was getting better because I know the system and I’d be so worried that his doctors—”

Luisa stopped herself.

“If he was here, in Belle Reve, instead of me, I would visit him.  I would want to be with him.  I’d want to be part of his recovery.  I’d want that.  But he’s….”

Luisa stopped again.  Her hands clasped together, fingers intertwining, and then she quickly untangled them, tapping her fingertips against each other in a templed position, and then she stopped and uncrossed her legs and put her feet flat on the floor and placed her hands on her knees.

“My brother and I are different people,” Luisa said, finally, fingers digging into her pants.  “I shouldn’t expect him to react to the situation the way I would.”

“No,” Alana said, her voice very soft, very gentle, “you shouldn’t.”  She paused before continuing.  “You shouldn’t expect anything of him.  Those expectations will only lead to disappointment and frustration when they aren’t met.”

Luisa nodded, accepting what Alana was saying, but it didn’t make her feel any better.  She scratched her middle finger on her pants, unable to relax.  “I miss him,” she said without looking up.

“I know.”

“I wish I could see him,” Luisa continued, eyes glancing to her mug of hot chocolate but not focusing on it.

“I know.”

Her hands tightened on her knees.  “I wish he would _visit me_.”

“I know.”  Alana reached forward and touched Luisa’s hand again.  She waited for Luisa to look back up, meeting her eyes before continuing, “But you have to accept that he might not and that that is _okay_.  Your mental health cannot rely on your brother, and you cannot healthily spend all of your time wondering where he is or why he isn’t here.  That won’t help you.”  She took Luisa’s hand in her own and squeezed it.  “You’ve figured you father out.  I’m sure that helps.  But you also need to be okay with not knowing.  I know you’re smart—”

“IQ of 152,” Luisa said with a half-hearted smile.

“—but that doesn’t mean you get to know everything.”

“I know that,” Luisa said with a fake scowl.  “I don’t want to _know everything_.  I want to _see my brother_.”

“So continue to get better,” Alana said, her voice still soft and encouraging as Luisa met her eyes.  “Then you can see him when you get out.”

Luisa sighed and nodded, head tilting to one side than the other.  “Okay,” she said finally.  “I can do that.”

She was determined to _try_ , anyway.

* * *

 

That morning, Luisa woke up in a state of panic.

She sat straight up in her bed, her braided hair flopping forward onto her left shoulder.  Her breathing was shallow.  Her body shook like an old washing machine during its heaviest cycle.  It was still dark outside when she looked with wide eyes at the window behind its steel bars, but there was a hint of light on the horizon.  She took a deep breath to try and steady herself – this did not work – and grabbed one of the blankets with her hand.

_This is real._

_This is here._

_It’s soft._

_It’s warm._

_It’s—_

She must have been having a nightmare, although she couldn’t imagine or remember what it was now.  The sheets were sticky with her sweat, so she must have been panicking long before she woke up.  Her eyes glanced over to Betty, who was curled up asleep in her bed.

Well.  They were in a mental institution.  Someone should be able to help her.

_Rose._

It was her first thought, even before the idea of the nurses with their pills, and she crept out of her bed, fighting the urge to stay still, fighting the nausea sitting steeped in the pit of her stomach.  She glanced through the tiny square window in her door, and when she couldn’t see any of the nurses coming or going down the hallway, she crept from her room, placing one shaking footstep in front of the other until she got to Rose’s room.

_Unlocked._

She opened the door and made it inside, shutting the door tight behind her, before she collapsed.

There was no one there.

 _Of course_ there was no one there – Rose had left Belle Reve, had escaped without her.  She knew that.  Luisa _knew_ that.  But in her panicked state of mind, she hadn’t remembered, had only had the impulse that _Rose calmed her down_ and that _Rose said if she panicked to come find her_.  She took another deep, shuddering breath.  She didn’t want to move again, not to walk back to her room all the way on the other end of the hall.  It had been hard enough to get here, and Rose’s room had to be just the same as everyone else’s, so it shouldn’t matter if she stayed or not.  Besides, she hadn’t been in here before.  She hadn’t had reason.

Luisa tightened her hand on the doorknob and used it to prop herself up, leaning on it – and the door – as heavily as she could.

Rose’s room was _less_ than everyone else’s.  Two beds, neither with occupants.  Another on her list of questions she wanted to ask Rose when she returned – _why don’t you have a roommate when everyone else does?_   Well.  Everyone other than Jessica, but _she_ had her rabbits.  They counted.  Sort of.

And even more astonishing, there was nothing in Rose’s room to indicate that _anyone_ lived there.  The walls were bare of any pictures.  There wasn’t anything – no knick knacks, no frames – sitting on top of the metal dressers.  It was _empty_.

Luisa felt another, much bigger shudder rack through her body, and this time the physical panic began to send waves through her mind.  _What if_ Rose _isn’t actually real, either?_   She took a deep breath but wasn’t able to focus to make it as deep as her earlier ones.  _No one leaves their room_ this _empty.  No one—_

She shuddered again and pushed herself away from the door to the nearest bed.  She lay down on it, but a spring in the mattress hit her side and she fell off.  Maybe _that_ was why Rose was so good at the couch – she’d had to deal with it on her own bed, so she was _used_ to the springs.

_Or she isn’t real._

Luisa tried to take another deep breath and pushed herself over to the other bed, which _thankfully_ did _not_ have the same loose spring problem as the one she’d started on.  She curled up on her side and pulled the comforter over her – even sweating the way she was, she was cold.  _So cold._

Okay.

_Focus on something, Luisa._

Her eyes turned to the comforter, searching for the familiar pattern of flowers that was on her own, and found that it was bare of any of that, of any decoration.

No good.

Try something else.

_Focus on something else._

_Rose isn’t real._

_Rose isn’t here, and Rose isn’t real._

_Rose has to be real.  Everyone I’ve talked to here has mentioned her.  She has to be real, or else they—_

_They humor me with Carla, so maybe they’d humor me with Rose, too._

Technically, this wasn’t exactly true.  The only one who had seen her really, truly interacting with Carla was _Betty_ , and Betty had given her a strange look to indicate that she knew Luisa was talking to someone who wasn’t there, and she’d never done that with Rose.  Well, no, that wasn’t true, she and Jessica _both_ used to give her weird looks for spending time with Rose, but they weren’t _that_ kind of weird, they were a _different_ kind of weird, the kind of weird that says she’s spending time with someone she shouldn’t be spending time with, kind of like in school, the sort of stink eye the popular kids would give her when the football players would come to her to get alcohol smuggled into the school because she was so much better at it than any of them were, like it was _hard_ , it **wasn’t hard** , they just didn’t want to take the risk of being the smuggler as much as they were okay with taking the risk of having what was smuggled, and it wasn’t like any of them sold her out, and _Rose still had to be real_ , not because everyone talked about her and maybe they were humoring her, but because they all had intricate relationships and history with her, like Jessica and Rose both escaped together that one time that she still didn’t know anything about, and Alice used to be friends with her but her name then hadn’t been Rose, it had been Denise, and even Dr. Bloom – Alana, she wanted to be called Alana, always Alana, like she was her friends, but she _wasn’t_ her friend, she was her therapist, but therapists can be friends, can’t they?  Like how friends are always looking out for each other and they have each others’ backs, it was kind of the same, a therapist looking after you, so technically Alana was _her_ friend, but she wasn’t really _Alana’s_ friend, because she wasn’t really looking out for Alana at all, unless you counted when they first met and she was worried about potential threatening patients coming back and finding her because she was having them meet at her house and how could that really be safe and _obviously Rose had to be real_ because if _Rose_ wasn’t real and all these people knew about her and had these intricate relationships with her then either **Rose was real** or **she was hallucinating everything** and Luisa _couldn’t_ be hallucinating everything, she _couldn’t be hallucinating everything_ , she hallucinated _Carla_ , but that was it, just one person, **one** , she didn’t see people, she saw _person_ , _one_ , and if she was hallucinating all of this, then what could she trust and who was actually talking to her and maybe she was—

_Close your eyes._

Luisa obeyed immediately.

_Focus on the sound of my voice._

She nodded once.

_Feel the sheets beneath you._

Okay.

_How do they feel?_

Cold.  Soft.

_What else do you feel?_

Afraid, afraid, afraid, I’m afraid, I think I’m hallucinating everything, I’m—

_Focus on the comforter._

Okay.

_What do you feel?_

It’s soft.  It’s tired.

_Tired?_

Like….  Like….

Luisa struggled to find the right words, and her hands, her fingers spread out, grasping the comforter a little tighter as she pulled it closer to her.

Too many people have used it.  Like when you have a shirt you’ve worn so often it wears holes into the armpits or those places around the edges of the shirt where you wring it together through your fingers when you’re nervous only I don’t wear those kinds of shirts anymore, mine are built to breathe.

 _Take a deep breath_ , the voice prompted.

Luisa took a deep breath.

_Hold it._

Luisa held it.

_Count to ten._

Luisa counted to ten.

_Let it out to another count of ten._

Luisa did so.

_Repeat._

It didn’t make the shivering stop.  it didn’t make the sweats or the cold go away.  It didn’t _exactly_ make her heart calm down.  But her mind felt a little bit freer.

_Don’t think about Rose._

_Okay_ , Luisa thought, even though the voice saying all of these things was Rose’s.

_Focus on the sheets.  Focus on the comforter.  Focus on—_

—the sound of the heater?

_Yes._

And Luisa could almost see Rose’s little smile of amusement, could hear it in her voice.  She felt warmer already.

_Can you do that?_

Yes.

Luisa took another deep breath.  She focused on what she was feeling and hearing around her – and she made sure to focus on _that_ , not on whether these things were actually real or not, because every time her mind went in that direction, it started to race again, and with the voice’s help, she redirected it back to the sensations.

It took time – she wasn’t sure how long – but eventually, the shuddering stopped.  Then, exhausted, she fell asleep.

* * *

 

“Luisa.”

 _Mmmmmmmmm._   She didn’t say it, but she _felt_ it, soft as the steady thrum of her heart.  Calm.  Content.  Safe.

Luisa shifted beneath her soft comforter – and the peach blanket, she was _certain_ , from how velvet it felt under her fingertips and how worn down it was – she’d had it with her every night and every morning since her first day at medical school.  She’d wanted something new, something comforting, to help her get through.  It was really old now.  She should buy another one.

Maybe when she got up.

“ _Luisa._ ”

Deft fingers brushed some of her hair out of her face – not exactly _soft_ – and then tapped the end of her nose.  She scrunched her nose, wiggled it a bit.  “Just a few more minutes.”

“No.”

Another boop on her nose, and she opened her eyes, finally waking up.  “ _Raf_ , your _sister_ needs her—”

But this was the second time in so many hours that Luisa’d forgotten something that should have been on the forefront of her mind – before, Rose being gone during her panic attack, and now, that she was still in Belle Reve, that she’d been here at all – so the cold concrete walls and the bar lines in the light filtering through the windows were a stark reminder of where and what she was.  The emptiness of the room startled her, too, until she remembered that she’d come to Rose’s room in the middle of a panic attack and stayed when she’d felt too ill to return to her own room.

She was surprised none of the nurses had said anything or tried to wake her or move her from this room back to her own.

This bed didn’t smell like Rose did.  There were no echoes of her scent – the lavender and the strawberries.  Maybe hers was the other bed.  Maybe—

It was only then that she again noticed the figure sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at her curiously.

“Rafael?” Luisa asked, her voice small.  “You came to visit me?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod, his dark eyes sparkling.  “Yeah, I did.  Thought my sister could use some of my time.”

Luisa laughed, disbelieving, but sat up and threw her arms around her brother anyway, holding him tightly to her.  “I’m so glad you’re here!”  She let go and leaned against the headboard of the bed that wasn’t hers and crossed her legs beneath the threadbare sheet and comforter.  “I figured you wouldn’t come at all, what with school.  How’s that going, by the way?”  She leaned forward again, excited, palms flat on her comforter.

No.  _Not_ her comforter.  Wrong room.

How did Raf find her?  Did the nurses know?  Of course they knew.  Would they be upset with her?  Would it cost her?  Obviously it couldn’t cost her _too_ much.  They’d let Raf in to see her, hadn’t they?  Of course they had!  So they couldn’t be planning to punish her.  A stern talking to later, maybe.  A reminder that she wasn’t supposed to stay in other residents’ rooms.  Maybe it was only okay this time since Rose wasn’t here.

It didn’t matter.  _Her brother came to visit her._

“Tell me _everything_ ,” Luisa said, lips spreading in the biggest smile she’d had since coming to Belle Reve.

“Well,” Rafael started, leaning forward across one knee, “it’s not all good.  My sister?  She’s in a mental institute.  That’s taken quite a bit of getting used to.”

Luisa’s face fell.  “You haven’t been drinking, have you?”

“Not as much as _you_ do,” Raf said with a chuckle.  “Just trying to figure some stuff out, you know?”  He frowned and shook his head.  “I’m sorry I didn’t come and visit you sooner.”

At first, Luisa didn’t say anything.  She reached forward and took his hand in her own, giving it a gentle squeeze.  “It’s okay,” she said, even though it hadn’t been before.  “You’re visiting now, and that’s what matters.”  She looked up and met his eyes, smiling, almost relaxed.  “Tell me about everything else, and when you’re done, I can tell you about all the attractive crazy women I’ve met.”

Raf laughed.  “Of course you would find the _attractive_ women here.  Why am I _not_ surprised?”

Luisa shrugged but didn’t say anything, fingers tracing circles on the comforter tucked around her.  Truth be told, she wasn’t sure if she’d found them or if they’d found her.  Either way, she was grateful.  She grinned and punched Raf’s shoulder.  “Tell me your updates first!  I want to know everything.  What it’s like _not here_.  How’s Dad?  Do you see him?  Are you okay?”  Her voice was quieter with the last question.

“I’m okay,” Raf said in as reassuring a tone as he could muster.  (He’d _never_ been particularly good at that.  Reassurances were Luisa’s specialty.)  He leaned forward.  “Let me tell you whatever you want to know.”


End file.
